


The Worst Mistakes

by SerpentsKiss



Series: Making It Right [1]
Category: Marvel (AU), Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abusive Family, Accidental emotional/psychological abuse, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate universe - Marvel, Arranged Marriage, Breeding, Coping, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Forced Pregnancy, Forgiveness, Gender Dysphoria, Hurt/Comfort, Intersex, Intersex Loki, Intersex Slurs, It may not technically be gender dysphoria but I'm still labeling it in case of triggers, Jotun Loki, M/M, Misunderstandings, Other, Pregnancy, Slow Build, Thor is an ass, Total failure to understand each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-01-23 22:31:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1581758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerpentsKiss/pseuds/SerpentsKiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor forgets to think of his Jotun war-bride as a person, to disastrous result for both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry this took so long for me to post! It's been circulating around my head for a couple months but between SDCC and work it just didn't make it out. But now I'm slightly more stress free and back in the game. :3

For a handsome, blond, studly prince, Thor got teased a surprising amount. This was not because he lacked prowess at fighting, ate less than his friends, could not hold his beer, or did not attract the women. On the contrary, he did all of these things, and topped it off by pursing a decent education through sheer interest. Aesir women flocked to him, flirted with him, tempted him, and generally tried to drag him to their beds. While his friends benefited from his steadfast refusal, Thor still bore the brunt of a rather impressive amount of torment. It was an uncommon ideal among the Aesir to avoid intimacy before marriage, something that he had picked up from some archaic Midgardian culture during the travels that Odin patiently tolerated. It seemed harmless enough to the All-Father, as he supposed that when Thor did fall in love, he would settle down quickly out of pure lust.

Odin could not have been more wrong. … Well, to be fair, perhaps Thor would have settled were he in love. The “prize” his father gave him after winning the savage Jotun war, however, was not received with delight. The blue, bejeweled, horned, ambiguously-gendered freak was an insult to Thor, and he treated him – her – it? – as such. For all of the respect he showed the varied cultures of Midgard, he turned none on his Jotun consort. Though he agreed reluctantly to the marriage, it was not a celebration but a quick and private ceremony, with bride and groom turning away from each other to go to separate rooms after it was complete.

It took months for Thor to approach... it. For all that he hated it, it was likely the only way that he would produce the heir that would be both his responsibility and (hopefully) his joy – the joy that would replace the joy he should find in his marriage. He had been told that a tutor had been working with the Jotun creature, attempting to instill some understanding of the sophisticated Aesir language in its barbarian head. It should be easy, then, to communicate some quick bargain to the thing... assuming that the Jotun could even bear an Aesir's children. It was unsettling to think that he might be forced to mate with this half-beast in vain, soiling himself for no reward. Perhaps then his father would allow the marriage to be annulled? There was merit in the thought.

When the Jotun's guard-attendants let him into its quarters, Thor was relieved to see that it had chosen a female form for the day. Perhaps that would make things easier in the long run. He looked at it as little as possible as he spoke, his mind so closed that he did not even register the flicker of hope that crossed the Jotun's face as she rose. His voice cut her off as she opened her mouth to speak, the flatness of his tone forbidding any attempt she had been going to make at a greeting.

“I require an heir. If you will consent and may provide me with one, you will never have to suffer my touch again. Is this acceptable?”

 

For all of the discomforts and humiliations he had suffered, Loki had held out hope that Thor, of all the Aesir, would accept him. The tutor and his attendants were tolerant enough. They had even become kind as he learned their language and thereby learned him. He was pleasant, curious, humorous, and somehow maintained a lightheartedness even during his dubious imprisonment. They came to enjoy his company and he theirs, and they willingly answered his questions about his absent husband. Through them he had gleaned an image of a man who was mindful of his responsibilities but open-minded almost to a fault, and certainly kind enough. They laughed over his adherence to certain archaic Midgardian customs but never quite explained what they were. This somehow endeared him to Loki, and he was pleased rather than frightened when Thor finally voluntarily entered his presence.

The man was handsome enough. Loki had noticed that during the ceremony, had noticed the breadth of shoulder and the strong arms and hands that could kill as easily as comfort. He was attractive to a Jotun as small as Loki, reminding him of the massive beings that he had admired in Jotunheim. His strength was appealing, and so, somehow, was his smile. That smile had never been turned on Loki but he had glimpsed it on his wedding day and hoped for it now as he opened his mouth to deliver a painstakingly thought out Aesir greeting in his new tongue. Perhaps that would impress his bridegroom enough to notice him, to spend time with him – perhaps even to begin to love him.

Thor's cold, flat words were like a slap to Loki's face. The hope that had blossomed over the past months, that had come almost to bloom when the tall man stepped into the room – it withered there and then and not only died but collapsed into a dust that left no trace of it in Loki's heart. His relaxed, almost shy posture snapped into rigid dignity and he turned his own face away from Thor's shamed refusal to look at him. His attendants flinched at his expression and his tone when he spoke, the easygoing Loki that they were used to replaced by the far icier Jotun prince that they'd barely met.

“Fine.” If Thor had thought his own tones cold, they were as nothing when compared to the icy lack of emotion in the blue being's voice. Ah, well, at least it understood, and if it was as disinterested in the task as he was then all the better. He did not think he could have stood the thing's interest had it had any.

“Now?” Its voice was precise, the the lyrical Aesir was accented with a slight gutteral drop that fell oddly on Thor's ears. He nodded in response, waving a hand at the attendants to leave them. They scuttled away from the unfamiliar displeasure of both their princes, leaving the doors shut respectfully behind them.

 

It took no time at all for either of them to disrobe. They did it with their backs turned, then approached the couch that was the largest piece of furniture in the room. The deference that Thor gave to Loki, the wave of his hand that invited her to make herself comfortable, was heavily tinted with irony. She lay down and refused stonily to look at Thor as he arranged himself over her. She was shaking. He didn't notice.

The moment could not be called a joining, nor a tryst. He hurt her as none of her Jotun lovers ever had though he was not trying to. Her body was dry and resistant, and she kept her eyes shut both so that she did not have to see him and so that her tears would not fall. He was resentful, though his body responded well enough. This was not the loving affection that he had expected from his study of Midgardian cultures. It felt more like the rape they abhorred, and he hated her all the more for being forced to this, for sacrificing something that he had thought precious to his responsibilities. He felt more as though she were taking from him than giving, and it burned in him like acid.

It ended quickly, though not quickly enough for either of them. His release was tense, his face contorted in nothing like pleasure. She was relieved that she suffered no climax from his indifferent hands, and did not bother to flinch away when he rose. He said nothing as he turned away to replace his clothing, and did not look at her as he left her. She did not call for her attendants, instead staying quite still on the couch, her naked body splayed as he had used it. She wept silently there, waiting and praying for his seed to sink deep into her before she rose to wipe her face and put on her own clothes.

 

The torture became a ritual for them from that day forward. He would come to her before the evening meal. She would be waiting, wrapped only in a bed linen. He stopped stripping, instead simply freeing his large cock to use her and buttoning himself back up to go away again. She always waited before she rose, not moving from the place he left her. She stopped crying, but she also stopped eating. He ate his evening meals, laughed and joked with his friends, but he stopped tasting the food. All of the Aesir learned quickly not to bring up what happened behind closed doors between their prince and his Jotun bride.

 

It was a blessing that it did not take many months for his seed to take. At least, she thought it was, relieved that the awful evenings might finally be at an end. She slept well that night for the first time in months, almost looking forward for his visit so that she could tell him the news. As the day passed she thought much of his reaction, first with hope, then with a sickened dread. He had no care for her, so how could he for the child? Surely he would be as abusive and indifferent to her baby as he was to her. Her body violently rejected the lunch that the women who stayed with her coaxed her into eating, and she refused to speak to them. Loki did not even notice to be grateful when they turned Thor away, pleading Loki's illness.

 

Loki had a week of peace before they let Thor return. She had resolved not to tell him, not until she had to. Perhaps she could come up with a plan of escape, could leave with her child and return to the Jotun to raise the baby in peace. It was a foolish plan, but it was the best she could come up with, and she clung to it fiercely simply to keep going.

No plan, no matter how well-laid, survives first contact with the enemy. When he came to her, his face set in something almost like anger and his cock engorged already for the task ahead of it, Loki balked. Her fear and hatred erupted together, catalyzed by the irrational desire to protect a child still far too small to be harmed by anything he could do to her. She flew at him when he approached her, tears suddenly pouring down her face as she beat at his chest and scratched at his cheeks and tried her level best to behead him through sheer force of will. None of the training in swordplay or combat that she had been so good at came to her; only a primal fury that overwhelmed her good sense and training and reduced her to a whirlwind and still perfectly dangerous tangle of emotions.

Thor had never seen the emotion in his consort before. He was taken completely by surprise at her attack, his hands rising to wrap around her wrists before his brain, carefully shut off to perform the abhorrent act, returned to complete awareness. Stunned, he stared down at the Jotun woman before him. … Jotun – woman. He saw, for the first time, her soul in her face. Her hatred of him, her desperation, her fear. He realized for the first time that she was a person, not an animal or an alien. His mind stood still again, paralyzed by the first hint of knowledge of what he had done to her. No – what they had done to each other... but mostly he to her. Suddenly, he was sick with it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor realizes that he may have destroyed any chance he has of a loving relationship with Loki. Due to complications with her health, however, that may not matter for long.

It took the intervention of Loki's attendants to pry them away from each other, to soothe Loki's passionate rage and release Thor's stunned grip on her wrists. Thor allowed himself to be led away, for the first time looking over his shoulder at his sobbing consort as he left. Concern showed on his face as Loki's servants shooed him out the door and he balked as they began to close it, throwing his shoulder into the gap between door and frame. The most senior of Loki's attendants looked up at him with displeasure, the set of her lined face showing no patience for more of her prince's nonsense. Thor found himself speechless as he looked down at her disapproving expression, searching his mind for something, anything at all, to say.

“... what do I do?” He managed at last, rather cowed by her judgment.

“You had best figure that out.” She shoved the door firmly against his shoulder, eyes narrowed in resolve, until he removed himself from it. “Far away from here,” she added, and the lock clicked as the heavy wooden door thumped shut.

The disapproval of the women who served Loki – after all, the women who served his consort were also meant to serve him – was as unsettling to Thor as Loki's sudden... fit? No, that was unfair. Thor realized now that whatever that storm had been, it had been thoroughly his fault and no over-reaction of hers. But her servants? They hadn't seemed to be upset with him before now. … no, that wasn't true, he realized. Sorting back through their interactions over the relatively short period since the wedding, he could indeed see a downward trend in their opinion of him. Indeed, they had seemed almost elated when he had first come to Loki's room. … an elation that had, momentarily, been echoed in Loki herself.

Thor had been wandering the hall rather aimlessly, but at this thought he ducked into an alcove and bent to be thoroughly sick into a potted plant. Their attitudes toward him had changed, he realized. Starting from that first moment and rolling rapidly downhill. And hers, Loki's – there had been a brief moment in time when their relationship could have become something warm, something beautiful. Her face, her posture – they had all been so open when he had stepped into her suite of rooms for the first time. It was his blindness that had shuttered that spark in her. He had been given a chance to be kind to her and the blighted Asgardian hatred of the Jotun – no, he couldn't blame Asgard – his hatred of the Jotun had ruined any chance he'd had of winning her trust.

He stared down into the dampened, foul-smelling soil of the plant for a long moment, hands clenched on the rim of the large pot. Whatever this was, or could have been, it was broken now, and Hel if he didn't hate himself for it. He had been so open to learning about everything, so curious about the world, and yet when he'd been gifted with the opportunity of learning about the Jotun he'd turned it away and treated his bride like an animal. It had likely been a terrible shock to her, and to the women who had been assigned to serve her. Stupid, Thor. Who is the barbarian now?

Surely there was someone who could counsel him. Surely there was someone who could tell him – well, if not how to repair this disaster, at least whether or not he would cause more harm by attempting to. He straightened up, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and taking a deep breath. The startling nausea had passed, but the sick shame lingered all the same. Fair enough, he supposed. If that was the reward he got for destroying something that could have been so good, he would suffer it willingly. He wiped at his lips one more time, firmly swallowing the taste of sickness, and turned toward the library to find his mother.

-

After turning Thor away, Loki's attendants returned to her side to carefully gather their mistress from the floor and lead her to bed. She was far too pale, the skin that had previously had such a deep sapphire glow now more the color of soiled wash-water. Amma, the oldest of the Aesir women who attended her and the one who had thrown the golden prince out, stroked her forehead with concern. Loki was far too warm for a Jotun, and Amma was unsure whether this was from an illness or simply the exertion of attacking Thor. Either way, it disturbed her, and the handmaiden sent her juniors scurrying to supply her with the herbs she needed to make a tea to lower the princess's fever.

Preparing the tea was slow work, and when it was finished it took much coaxing to persuade Loki to raise her head to drink it. Though her face was still warm, Amma judged that her ailment was as likely to be misery as anything else. The adjustment of her body to carrying a child was no help either, and Amma feared that Loki's depression would spiral deeper and hurt her and the baby both. She sent the other women away and stayed by Loki's side, waking her frequently from exhausted sleep to sip the warm liquid.

-

Frigga was, as Thor expected, in the library. He found her poring over a rather dated tome on Jotun culture and making small notes to one side that he supposed were corrections to old and disproved assumptions about Jotun. She had been spending time with the small delegation that had accompanied Loki (a group he now wondered if he should regret separating his consort from) and undoubtedly had better information than could be found in old books like these. She set her notes aside as he approached, welcoming her son with a smile and scooting aside so that he could share her bench.

Thor sat heavily beside her, the weight on his mind clearly much heavier than his own weight on the bench, which made it creak softly in protest. Frigga reached out to set one hand over his on his knee, her smile melting into concern. “What is the matter?” It had something to do with his bride, she was sure, as she knew relations between them must be severely strained. Thor had given up discussing her altogether, but they appeared to have some kind of agreement that she had more or less trusted was going well enough. She thought now that she may have been wrong to do that.

His hand turned under hers to squeeze it lightly and his large frame inclined slightly toward her. She smiled up at him, though her brow was slightly furrowed with worry. She could see that he was tense and unhappy, and in spite of her question he remained silent for a long moment. That suited her well enough; she simply sat with him, fingers curled gently around his much larger hand, and watched the changes in his face. He was angry, she could see, but not the outward, explosive anger of his younger days that exploded outward and hit everything around it like the storms Mjolnir controlled. This was internalized, simmering... painful. Quite unlike him, she thought.

When he spoke, his voice was low, toneless. “I believe I have harmed my wife,” he said, no emotion showing in his face or voice, evident only in the slight tremor of his shoulders. Frigga was surprised, both by his statement and by his claiming the Jotun as his wife – before, he had only ever called her by her name or “my bride,” the former suggesting distance and the latter a relationship only of contract. Perhaps if she had noticed that before his comment would not be such a surprise to her now.

“In what way?” She kept her own voice light and inviting, with no hint of judgment. Yet, anyway; there were many things she would forgive her son, but purposefully harming an innocent was not one she would easily let go of. She doubted that was what he meant, though, and so remained open, listening as hard as she searched his face and posture for clues.

Thor stayed still as stone, staring at the table. “I fear I have betrayed her trust.” That was what was hurting him so badly, just now. He had not realized at the time that she had been willing to trust him, had never imagined it to be possible. Surely he had betrayed her with that as thoroughly as if he had cultivated her confidence in him before breaking it to pieces.

Well, that was something. Frigga stayed invitingly silent for a moment, waiting to see if he would go on. When he didn't she moved her hand from under his and raised it to the back of his neck, gently stroking the skin revealed by the tie holding his hair back. The gesture had soothed him when he was a small child, and she was rewarded for remembering it by the slow release of tension from his shoulders. He leaned toward her a little more, sighing, then rested his elbows on the table and addressed himself to the fine wood.

“I had thought that – we could come to an arrangement. That it would be mutually agreeable for us to produce an heir and have as little contact with each other as possible. I thought – that she was amenable.” His voice dropped, becoming so soft that Frigga had to lean in to hear it. “I find now that I was being – cruel. Barbaric. That I did not see what she wanted at all. I took what willingness she had and soured it, and –“ His hands clenched briefly on the tabletop, but he went on. “And I fear that now she hates me, perhaps fears me, and I am sorry for it.”

These were clearly very serious concerns, and Frigga sighed softly as he unburdened them. She found that she had her own regrets, not the least of which that she should have found a way to ease herself into her daughter-in-law's life despite the Jotun's skittish attempts to avoid her. She could likely have stopped this mess from becoming so... painful, both for her son and her daughter-in-law (Son-in-law? The Jotun were intersex, after all, and Loki had seemed so comfortably ambiguous when he – she distinctly remembered he had been introduced as “he” – had come here. Was this forced female role part of what troubled their relationship? A concern for another time, surely, but one that must be addressed). Surely she was as guilty here as Thor was, though in a different way. She ran her hand comfortingly over his shoulders. “What made you realize your mistake?”

The broad back shivered under her touch and Thor rubbed his hands over his damaged face, his voice muffled by them. “She attacked me – no.” He corrects himself firmly. “She seemed to feel as though she had to protect herself from me, and she acted to do so. Under the circumstances, I – cannot say that she was wrong.”

In spite of everything, Frigga thought, at least she could be proud of that in her son.

-

Amma's worry grew as Loki's fever worsened. Not only did it not respond to the herbal remedy Amma had made for her, but she stopped responding as well. Amma sent the attendants scurrying again. One went for ice and water and cloth to cool and wrap Loki's feet and hands and forehead. Another raced to fetch one of the Asgardian physicians. After neither attempt at a solution bore much fruit, two more were dispatched to fetch one of the Jotun delegation.

All of the attendants disliked the Jotun man at once. In spite of his large size, bigger even than Thor, he had an brutishly oily personality. He sniped, but with no tact to disguise it, cementing Amma's impression that the Jotun cared more about their treaty with Asgard than the young prince taken to procure it. He sneered visibly at the news that Loki was pregnant, and danced around a solution until Amma drew herself up to her full height (taller than Loki's, certainly, though it pained her back to stretch so) and barked at him to tell her how to help the Jotun prince.

“You think a runt like that will live in this heat?” He jeered at her, clearly disdainful of Loki's poor health. “Swollen like a rutted beast?”

Amma had taken what she needed from the exchange and had him thrown out at once, fuming as fiercely as the rest of Loki's handmaidens. They'd set about trying to cool Loki at once, swarming over her pale form like anxious worker bees, covering her with cool stones and whisking away blankets sodden with melted ice. The tireless effort lowered her temperature some little bit, but not nearly enough in Amma's opinion. The Asgardian physicians had no better solution for her.

Desperate, Amma called for Frigga.

-

A rap on his door in the dead of night brought Thor sharply awake. He normally slept heavily, but his distress over his sudden realizations about his bride had kept him dozing, and then only fitfully. He was on his feet at once, blanket wrapped tight around his middle and bunched in a fist for modesty as he moved to open the door. His mother stood there, looking tired but oddly determined.

“Get dressed,” she said at once. “Clothe yourself warmly. Loki is pregnant, and if you do not take her north to the glaciers she may well die, and her child with her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ownership of this particular Loki belongs to LadyGabe (please check out her excellent Legend of Zelda fanfic, as well as the rest of her library). She has also been instrumental in inspiration and characterization and soothing my puffy, frantic tail.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor's feelings on all of this are clear, but what is happening in Loki's mind? More comes to light as Thor takes his consort North to the safety of ice and snow.

As his attendants dragged him off of Thor, Loki lost his resolve. Not only that, he lost all the energy he had stored in the form of anger and resentment and a subtle, loathing fear. It was as though he'd flung it all at Thor like a blow, had scored it into his cheeks and chest with the marks of his fingernails and had none left to sustain his overworked body. He went limp in their hands, catching them so unprepared that he slithered all the way to the floor to the sound of their murmurs of dismay. They gathered him up carefully from there while Amma delivered a few choice words to Thor at the door and carried him gently back to his bed as his most senior handmaiden bustled to accompany them. 

It was only as Amma began making disapproving clucking noises over his forehead that Loki realized that the heat was finally getting to him. He'd resisted it well enough over the past months, but either the pregnancy or the loss of the rage fueling him had stolen the last reserves of strength that kept him tolerating it. Not a fever, as she fretted quietly to the other attendants about. No: a fever implied an illness, and Loki knew his own body well enough to tell that he had none. This was simply his body beginning to acclimate to the temperature around him by raising its own. He supposed that he could do something about it if he wished, but he was just so tired...

-

He had been roused some time later by Amma's concerned hands lifting his head and tempting him into taking a sip of warm liquid. Not hot, to her credit, but too warm to be comfortable to him. Still, he was far too exhausted to resist, not then nor any of the times that followed when she would wake him with a gentle hand from an unpleasant doze and press the cup again to his lips.

It didn't help. He knew it wouldn't help, knew as soon as he gleaned her intent from the snippets of conversation he overheard in his waking moments. It just didn't matter to him then, not as much as the stolen snatches of sleep did, or the thoughtless waking moments of blessed silence. He continued to accept her gentle ministrations, though each time she tried to wake him it became far more difficult.

She wasn't wrong about the depression either, he'd realized as he resurfaced again, later. It wasn't the child, though. No, the child – the child should be a source of joy to him. His child, his child that was supposed to be wanted, cared for, desired and uplifted, the only one of all the rest. The thought brought him a brief moment of relief before the memory of Thor's betrayal crashed down upon it again. He slept, after that, and it was then that Amma found that she couldn't wake him.

-

The cool, damp fabric that cocooned his extremities fought through to his dreams for a brief time. He dreamed of the snow, of lovers who had wanted his body, even if they had not cared overmuch for him. He dreamed of joyful anticipation, of pain mixed with pleasure, of the rending of hearts and crushing sadness. His hatred of maintaining a relatively effeminate form, of remaining womanly to please the Aesir aesthetic while he carried the Aesir heir, made its way to the surface in his dreams. He saw again the memories of himself trying it on, time and again, a desperate attempt to reach the remembered comfort that he used to have with his body in any form. He had been defeated, each time returning to a more masculine form more bitter than before. He'd thought he couldn't do it, this time. He had looked at his reflection in clear, shining ice one last time before his kidnap to Asgard and had forced himself to become softer, more pleasing. One last time, he'd told himself, and had choked on the bitterness of remembered regret all the way to his wedding and through it.

-

The fabric wasn't helping anymore. They took it and the cool water away and the sharp chill of ice and cooled stones replaced it, sharpening the Jotun's dreams. He'd hoped, for a time, hoped while he learned and took to heart hints of his husband's odd Midgardian habits, that perhaps this once, he could enjoy bearing a body that could bear a child. He'd hoped that it would be accepted, appreciated. He had hoped that he could be loved. He'd shaped his body as carefully as he could to meet the Aesir standard for loveliness, right down to considering changing the color of his own skin. He had balked there, satisfied with the face in the mirror. Glass, not ice. He'd been so excited when those blue eyes, blue as the ice of Jotunheim, had fallen on him. He had turned toward that gaze like one of those Asgardian plants toward that searing sun, desperate for approval...

-

Cold woke him at last. Not the tempting but ultimately useless coolness of their stopgap attempts at lowering his core temperature, but actual snow-cold, ice-cold, the bone deep chill of his own world. He lay in it for a long time, not thinking, not wondering how he had gotten there. He simply rested, mind dancing away from the painful subjects that had so recently absorbed it and floating as though on the surface of a frozen lake, nestled between the protection of ice above and the cushion of near-freezing water beneath. It was utter relief to be so free of everything for a time. Perhaps they had taken him back home...? He let the thought drift away, unwilling to consider anything yet.

After a time, his mind turned inward. He traveled slowly down the length of his spine, taking into account each vertebra, branching away into each rib. Dancing from organ to organ in the eye of his mind, touching down lightly to feel the coolness and appreciate how it had sunk into him to the core. All the way to his womb, in fact, tucked hard and stretched in the softness of his abdomen. He let his mind cover it slowly, traveling over every tiny particle of his own life that made up that small incubator, checking his inner health with what little magic he could conjure in his exhaustion. It all seemed to be in order, the child within him growing stubbornly away in spite of its protector's somewhat damaged state. That was good. It pleased him briefly, at least, until he let himself begin to come more aware of what was around him.

Sharp air, devoid of humidity. Well, he'd expected that. His senses told him that he was outdoors, cushioned in snow, with ice forming on his face and lashes that was real whether or not he chose to pay attention to it. He raised his hands cautiously, half expecting them to resist him, to be somehow bound. He was almost surprised when they weren't, coming to his face as he bid them and gently brushing away the cold flakes that rested there.

Only then did he open his eyes, and find himself staring up into the steel blue sky. Almost like Jotunheim but for the spiked tops of evergreen trees that intruded into his peripheral vision. He turned his head slightly to see them properly and found that the illustrations he'd seen in the Asgardian books did them no justice. Jotunheim had no such plants, and the Asgardians seemed to take them so for granted. To him they seemed majestic, rising from the mountainside in huge and stubbornly disorganized groups that clustered the slopes, as though the tiny cones he understood them to sprout from had swarmed like Midgardian ants over the giant peak and rooted there to grow undisturbed.

He wasn't sure how long he admired them before his mind again paused to wonder how he had gotten here, why he was here. It was not Jotunheim, certainly, as his muzzy brain had briefly wondered. No, this was pure Asgard, albeit a part that he had never before known. He shifted in the snow, trying to sit up, and found that though his hands were not bound, his body appeared to be. No – not bound, buried. He tilted his head down to find that snow covered the lower part of his body and advanced all the way up to his chest, ending just under his arms to leave them free. … baffling. Wise, yes. Possibly it had even saved his life. But why, and who?

A cabin. He hadn't noticed it before, half-hidden in the monstrous Asgardian trees under the fluffy, white snow. It seemed to be composed of brown trunks that had no tops, ending instead in a sloped roof that didn't manage to escape the blanketing whiteness that was so odd to his own eyes. Everything in Jotunheim seemed to be tinted in the blue of the ice there, and Asgard was so full of color. Even the muted, “natural” tones here were rich to him, the dark wood that made up the cabin almost smoldering with warmth and depth against the green of the trees around it. It looked – comfortable. Restful. Safe, and he was not sure why. Surely the cold snow around him should seem safer, even if it was so much lighter and softer than the driving ice of his home.

When his mind finished processing that view, he turned his face back to the sky, and then slowly to the other side. He expected more trees there, more snow. The same as he had just seen, though he was not expecting to find another cabin there. That he was right about, though not that in his assumption that there would be nothing else. There was, in fact, something else. Someone, truth be told, lying a few feet away from him and shivering violently in spite of the fact that he was bundled so warmly in furs and skins to be almost half again his usually impressive size. Loki found himself tensing, wanting to draw away, but he could do nothing half-buried and drained as he was. He turned to the sky again instead, closing his eyes hastily as though removing the sight from his view might make it unreal.

Not so.

He had seen the blond head begin to rise when he had looked that way. He had seen the bright blue eyes focus on him, the brow furrow with – surely it was not concern. Curiosity, it must be. There was no chance that his Asgardian husband had not noticed his consciousness, but Loki stayed stubbornly still as though pretending that he was not there would make him go away. His handmaidens he could have dealt with. Amma's tender concern would have been more of a balm than a burden, in fact. Being alone would have been best of all, but this – ?

The deep tones felt harshly on his ear without regard to the gentleness of the intent behind them, and he flinched slightly and turned his face further away. A tear slid down his cheek, wakening in him the first hints of the old fury that had kept him functioning these many months and had abandoned him so suddenly. He was angry at himself for showing weakness, wretched at the fact that he had been so weak as to need to be – to be rescued like this, like the princess out of tales that he was pretending to be.

Thor repeated the words, apparently uncertain whether or not Loki had heard them. Well, he was right. Loki hadn't, but he did now, and it made him hate his own helplessness even more.

“Shall I dig you out now?” The words were spoken in a voice harshened by the cold wind and the frost. That voice fit Loki's low opinion of him far better that way, shaped by the elements into something beside the usual sunny warmth.

No, thought Loki bitterly. Go away and leave me here to freeze. I could be happy out here, alone with my child. Here, where you cannot hurt either of us. None of that came to his lips, however – only a tiny, miserable whisper that was almost swallowed by the wind that rode down the mountainside and spewed tiny sharp flecks of ice before it.

“Yes,” he said, and was not even certain that Thor had heard him until the giant moved, looming over him in exactly the way he had in Loki's worst and most painful memories, and begin with astonishing gentleness to push the snow away from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ownership of this particular Loki belongs to LadyGabe (please check out her excellent Legend of Zelda fanfic, as well as the rest of her library). She has kept Loki clear and true to himself, and soothed my puffy, frantic tail.
> 
> Thanks to Sigynthefaithful for requesting more from Loki's POV, because this would have been a very different chapter otherwise.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trapped in a small cabin together for an uncertain amount of time, Thor treads carefully around Loki and does his best to meet her needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stunning LadyGabe took the time to coauthor this with me and read back over it for characterization and epic writing screw-ups. As ever, I cannot thank her enough for unpuffing my tail and soothing my ears. This particular version of Loki belongs exclusively to her.

As he helped Loki back to the small cabin, Thor was careful to touch her as little as possible. He was unsure if she realized that this was out of respect and not the disgust that he had previously showed her, but her face was unreadable and kept mostly turned away from him so he had no hint about her inner thoughts. She pulled away from his loose grasp as they reached the cabin, resting her weight against the rough-hewn logs and not his sturdy form. It hurt him slightly, but he made no mention of it. He'd brought her far worse pain, after all. This was small compared to that, a tiny burden he'd shoulder without complaining.

The inside of the tiny place was – well, “rugged” would be a polite term for it. It had stood empty since late spring, when Thor's mother and one or two of those closest to her had spent a few days there gathering herbs that Frigga occasionally used in her quiet magics. It belonged in a sort of vague way to his family, or to his father's title (he honestly was not sure), but it had been the best place he could think to bring her. His mother had brought him with her when he was young, and he had fond memories of sitting on that low stool in the corner and helping her strip the buds off of young plants, or curling in the single bed beside her during the warm spring nights.

He was delighted to see a tiny toy horse, one that he'd tried to carve himself many, many years ago. It sat high on an upper shelf with an air of abandonment about it, though there was little dust. There was not really enough traffic through the cabin for there to be dust. Sight of the vaguely horse-shaped thing warmed him, and he wished that this were the sort of quiet, relaxing excursion where he could share the happy memory with his wife. Perhaps someday? Unlikely, he told himself firmly. Be grateful of her tolerance and expect nothing more.

In addition to the toy horse and stool, the cabin held little else. There was a rather fine wooden rocking chair in one corner near the largest window, and opposite it a bed that was large enough for two adults to sleep in comfort. There was a hearth against one wall that vented up through the eaves, and a few crude necessities for eating and cooking. A pan, at least, in which to cook their dinner, and small clay plates and mugs and even one chipped bowl. They sat upon a modest table, at which stood two wooden chairs that appeared to me made out of the same rough wood as the cabin. He made note of them all, glad that his mother had thought to send him with utensils along with as generous an amount of food as he could carry while still supporting Loki's weight. The hunting knives had been his idea; one was sheathed at his belt, and the other tucked deep into the bottom of the pack he had carried up the mountain.

He gestured to the chair by the window, likely the coolest place in the cabin, and Loki felt her way along the wall toward it before sinking rather heavily down. She said nothing as he began to build a small fire on the hearth, and he was grateful for the moment to not have to think of anything to say to her. The fire came slowly to life under his hands and he began to unpack the food between tossing small bits of kindling to the lapping flames. Bread and the few vegetables went on the small table; tonight's meat directly into the small pan. The remainder he took outside, burying it a few yards from the building and marking it with a branch shoved deep into the snow beside it. In his experience there were few carnivores to be found here during the deep winter, and he expected it to be safe. He took the dishes with him as well, scrubbing their insides with fresh snow, well away from the area upturned by his trampling.

Thor cast a glance at Loki as he came back inside. She was curled into the rocker, cheek pillowed on her knee and looking wan. Her color was better, though, more the deep blue of glaciers and lakes and the Jotunheim he remembered from the war and less the muddy paleness the heat had caused. That pleased him, and he went about slicing vegetables into the pan beside the meat with slightly more silent cheer than before. A small packet of spices, thoughtfully included by Amma, went on top and he set the whole thing over the fire, stirring it gingerly with the same knife. The pan was very small, only large enough to prepare one decent serving, and his belly made plaintive sounds under the dense furs he wore. He ignored it, though, focusing instead on how hungry Loki must be and how much the carefully selected spices would hopefully please her.

The meat was almost finished and the vegetables almost tender when he finally spoke, his eyes remaining carefully on his cooking and not turning toward his wife. “... I feared for your life.”

Loki answered him more quickly than he had expected, sitting up slightly to squint at him in the flickering light of the fire. “You feared to lose the child?” It was off-handed and harsh, her tone automatically defensive. Thor may have evidenced some feeling for her, proven by his bringing her here to this comforting climate, but she didn't believe for a moment that it was for any genuinely altruistic reason.

Her question felt rather like a trap. Thor considered it, fearing that whatever answer he gave would sound callous or unfeeling. He did care about the child, of course – but if he answers her in the affirmative, she might believe that he had no feeling at all for her. If he responds by saying that he did not care for the baby she carried, she may hate him more for showing himself to be an uncaring father. He scraped the contents of the pan carefully onto one of the small plates as he digested her question, letting it cool for a few moments as he began to slice the next batch.

Really, he supposed that there was nothing left but to tell the truth, though he feared to see how she would take it. Vegetables hit the hot pan with little spitting sounds that hissed under his words as he spoke, almost comforting in their urbanity. “... when my mother woke me and told me what I must do to help you, I... forgot the child.” He spoke quietly, choosing again not to meet her eyes. His words were honest, at least, as he owed her. At the time, waking in the dark and feeling the panic rise in his chest at his mother's statement, he had simply been frightened and perhaps a little hopeful for a chance – a chance not to win her, certainly, but a chance to not fail her again. “I thought only of what I must do to return your health to you.”

Again, her answer was prompt and pointed. “You showed no concern for me before.” Far from it, he'd showered her with contempt, at times even outright disgust. He had not brought her here out of any kind of love for her, and the only husband's responsibility he'd seen fit to meet had been to provide an heir from her body. He had to have some other motive here, and she was determined to find it.

“... I know.” Setting the knife and vegetables aside, Thor rose to bring the full plate to her, tucking a generously sized bread roll onto one side. “Be careful. It is warm.”

Loki's stomach twisted as she inhaled the scent of the food. She was starving as she had not been for weeks, her normalized temperature allowing her body to take up normal function again. She accepted it calmly, however, at least refusing to let Thor see how ravenous she was when her pride wanted her to refuse his offering altogether. She balanced it carefully in her lap, quickly beginning to eat.

Thor retreated to his chair again as she began to eat, realizing that he'd tucked into the snow outside the meat that was supposed to supplement his meal. … well enough, as his stomach was far too jumbled by his emotions for him to eat. He stirred the sliced vegetables listlessly, letting them cook for later. “I – made mistakes.” He had to raise his voice slightly to be heard over the renewed spitting of the greens. “Too many mistakes.”

There was a slight delay this time, as Loki had to finish chewing and swallowing before she could respond. She wouldn't tell him so, but the food tasted heavenly on her hungry tongue and warmed her pleasantly going down, as food was meant to. The spices he had used were her favorites, and she wondered for a moment who had provided them to him. Amma, likely. He had never paid enough attention to her to find out on his own. “You have indeed.” Her words were matter-of-fact, and she felt no remorse in jabbing him a little deeper with the thorn of his guilt. He had broken her trust more thoroughly than she had imagined possible, and if it truly brought him pain, he deserved every bit of it.

“I – “ What Thor had to say to that seemed so... insufficient. Beyond that, even, it seemed worthless. He swallowed hard and tried again. “I would do – anything to have the chance to – to see you as a person before I saw you as an enemy.”

Loki leaned back against the window, prodding at her food as she relished the chill of the glass. “You claim to see me as a person now?” She sounded as disdainful as it was possible to be, tone as cold as the air outside.

He shifted uncomfortably on his chair, leaning a little closer to the fire. “I do not... expect you to believe me.”

Her answer was simple, the simplicity of it what made it truly cutting. “I do not.”

It hurts. How it hurts, but Thor quietly reminds himself that he deserves nothing else and slides the half-cooked vegetables onto the other plate, shoving them aside so that his turning stomach doesn't have to suffer the smell. “... you do not have to trust me for me to care for you, I hope. … do you need more bread? It will not last long.”

Loki considered him for a moment, then gave a curt nod, offering her plate up slightly to invite the proffered roll. He moved to her only long enough to set it on the side of her plate, then returned to the sanctuary of the small table and chair. The bread he gave her was the remainder of it, the half that was supposed to accompany his meal. Her eyebrow quirked up slightly at that, but she did not comment. He owed her far more than food, and the child within her offered no apology for accepting nutrients from both of them.

At the risk of forcing the conversation, Thor tried one last time. “Is there anything else you will need?” He spoke cautiously, none of his usual sun's-gift-to-Asgard confidence in his voice. In fact, he had shown no confidence at all since he began speaking. “... anything that I may provide for you?”

“Something to drink.” She raised her eyebrows at him slightly, glancing to the bread. Delicious, yes, but not at all moist.

Thor rose to his feet, fetching the clay bowl as he did so. “I can provide you with fresh water...?” It was all he had, and he dearly hoped that it would be enough. Her nod and cool acquiescence reassured him, and he ducked out through the low doorway to heap the bowl with fresh, clean snow before he came back in to hold it near the fire. The white heap melted down cool and crisp, and he poured it into one of the cups before bringing it to her.

They were silent again for a few more moments as Loki gratefully drank deep of the cool water. Thor watched her, then, relieved to see how much she had eaten and how eagerly she drank. It was a stark change from how sparingly her handmaidens had reported her eating. “... I am grateful that you – find the food palatable.”

Loki's eyebrows went up again. They were wonderfully expressive, Thor realized, and hated himself for not noticing it before. “Why are you so concerned?”

Again, the simple truth seemed to be the best thing to tell her, though Thor was frankly nervous of expressing it. He fell back on his earlier reflections, as they seemed safest. “... I have no right to try to win you, but I – may at least try not to fail again.”

“In keeping me alive?” Her responses were always so quick, so acerbic. He hoped that someday her assumptions about him would be less – no, he could not expect that. Should not. He reminded himself again to be grateful for her tolerance.

“... do you not wish to live?” Her words sank in suddenly and a new fear took root in his chest, coiling down from there into the pit of his stomach. His face became very controlled, suddenly, so unlike the expressive openness he usually wore.

While Loki usually seemed so willing to pin him with her frank gaze, her eyes now dropped to her food and she took a careful bite before answering. “I did not say that.” Though it was not entirely untrue; there had been moments, especially as the heat began to sink into a body not designed to tolerate it. But Loki would never have made it past childhood as a runt in Jotunheim without a great desire to live.

Thor's body visibly relaxed, and he looked down at his hands as they unclenched in his lap. He had not even realized that he had curled them into fists for that brief moment. “I do not want to fail in keeping you alive, no. But – that is not all.”

There was that icy gaze again. It was almost a comfort. “Tell me.”

Ah, the complexity of his intentions. Under the circumstances, they sound almost ludicrous. “... I would like for you to be happy, or as close to it as you may come in Asgard, far away from your home.”

Her words were abrupt and chill, not at all what he had been expecting – and even further from what he had hoped for. “I would prefer to stay up here. You can send my maids to tend to me.”

Surely his stomach could sink no further. He had to swallow again, force his tone to stay level. “... permanently?” It seemed as though it was not even possible, in fact, with such a small place to stay and women who were hardy but used to the comforts of palace life.

“You would not have to deal with me and I would not have to deal with you.” Loki paused. “Nor the heat,” she concluded reasonably.

“... if what you want is for me to be far away from you, I will arrange it.” He would indeed, though it would tear his heart to do so. “It is – not what I want, however.” As though what he wanted had any value in this conversation. Still, truth. He owed her that.

Loki bit viciously into a piece of meat, eyes narrowing toward him. She chewed it as though she wished it were his throat before swallowing and addressing him again. “I do not understand why you are claiming this sudden change of heart.”

Thor hadn't either, he had to admit. Not when he'd first had it. Not until his heart to heart with that potted plant he'd been so violently sick into. He hesitated, trying to form the complexity of Asgardian politics and his own emotions and the pressure of his father into concise words. “... because – I expected for us to hate each other when you – hoped for something else, I think.” If he remembered correctly the hope he had seen in her face. “I hardened my heart to you so that I would not be – hurt by the disdain I expected you to have for me.” His voice lowered, a small quaver of remorse quickly controlled. “I never meant to hurt you, instead.”

Her voice also fell, from the demanding coolness of her questions to a softer note. “I never wanted to hate you.”

His fears were confirmed. He closed his eyes briefly on the pain it brought him. He knew that she hadn't wanted to hate him, and he wished he had known before and hated himself for not seeing it sooner, when her trust was so ready to be offered to him. “I know that now. I – wish I had spoken to you.” His voice fell to near-inaudible. “I wish that I had tried to make you smile.”

“I am still Jotun.” Her tone held a hint of – what. Question? Censure? Denial?

“I know. That – “ He tried to think of a way to express it without sounding like he wanted something from her. “That – matters only in that I meet any unique needs that you may have. Needs that I might not think of. The cold, for instance.”

Her voice was clearly sharp now, laden with a biting humor that didn't reach her eyes. “You suddenly do not hate my people?”

Thor took the time to pour the meager remains of the melted snow into his own cup, sipping it before he answered. It felt good on his dry throat, and soothed his stomach some. “I have come to realize that my hatred stems from the skewed views of someone who thinks himself an enemy, and that had I approached your culture as I have so many others, I – might have respected it.” His careful tone vanished briefly, and he frowned slightly, suddenly sounding much more like the prince he was. “I have little to say for those who accompanied you here, however.” Amma had related the cruel words to him, and he had seen the big Jotun who had dared utter them tossed back to Jotunheim before he had taken Loki from the capitol.

Again her eyes left his, if only for a moment. “... mine are not a kind people.” She had hoped so much that Asgardians would be different. Some had proved her hope correct, such as Amma and the others who served her. Others... had disappointed her too painfully.

“You seem different.” The question was inviting, hopeful that he could learn at least a little more about her. “What were – “ He stopped, his tongue flicking nervously over his lower lip before he pinned his eyes firmly to the floor at her feet. He has no right to ask this, and he hopes that she knows she has every right to refuse to answer. Carefully, he rephrases his query. “I wonder what you had hoped for. Before.”

“Perhaps a place I would be freer.” Her tone had gone distant, her eyes looking past him. It made Thor wonder if perhaps the pain he had brought her had not been the first. All the more reason to hate him for it.

Still, freedom – a certain amount of it – was something he could offer. “All you need do is ask.” He leaned forward a little, earnest. “Whatever is in my power to give shall be yours.”

She met his eyes, her own suddenly fierce. “I do not wish to lie with you again.”

That, at least, was something he'd expected. “I may be a fool, Loki.” He murmured her name, one he'd so rarely said. “Though not that much of one, I hope. I will not ask it of you again.”

“So long as we are clear.” She didn't waver.

Thor chose his words with caution, to try to reassure her. “Completely. I – owe you an apology. For all of it. More than just an apology. … I am sorry, and I will not ask you to forgive me.”

His words fell on silence, for a moment. Loki absorbed them without reacting, answering as though she had not heard. “What do you expect of me now?”

That startled Thor quite thoroughly. “I – nothing.” His voice was surprisingly firm. “You owe me nothing.”

“I do not. I will still be responsible for acting as your consort, however.”

Thor sighed. He was beginning to be of the opinion that Loki would serve excellently as a consort for a better man than he. “That – is a matter of meeting expectations that are not mine.”

Damn her stare for being so direct. It was as if every time she looked at him her memories of all he had done showed in her face. “You will have expectations when the child is born.” True enough, he had to give her that. “What will you want?”

Now was truly the time to tread with caution. He laced his hands together, elbows resting on his knees. “If – you cannot abide my company, we will come to some mutually agreeable arrangement. I wish only to see – her, or him, or them. To be a part of her life.”

Loki considered that for a moment, setting her plate on the arm of the rocker and steadying it with a hand. “I suppose I cannot argue with that.” Though she might wish to.

“... what do you expect of me?”

“I expect you to be good to the child.” The ice in her tone was far preferable to the complete lack of emotion, he found. “I will kill you if you are not.”

Thor believed her. There had been stories about Loki Laufeyson, stories he had dismissed before he met the Jotun. Now he wondered at them, resolving to try to ferret them out. “I hope to be good to both of you, if you will allow it.”

Her lack of emotion remained as steady as her voice. “We will see.”

At that, Thor judged the conversation to be over. He rose to his feet, feeling stiff and tired. “... I do not wish to force my presence on you.” He spoke softly, apologetic for – for all of it. For giving her reason to doubt. “I just – I am sorry. If I could do it over, I – I would try to know you. To love you.”

Loki had begun to look out the window, but at that she turned slowly back to him. She studied him for a long moment, gaze sweeping from his face down the length of his body and back up. She considered his expression, his words... and most importantly, his actions. When she spoke, there was something again in her voice, though Thor could not have named it. “I believe you.”

Nothing had ever been more heartening, Thor thought. He gave her a small smile, though sad. “I will go try to find us something else to eat. It is never too soon to begin preparing for our next meal. If you need me – “ He cast around for a moment for something that she could do to get his attention even if he was well away in the snow. “-- put out the fire.” That would do, he would see the modest column of smoke vanish out of the sky. “And Loki --” He hesitated visibly, the brief confidence of a seasoned hunter suddenly replaced by that awkwardness he wore in her presence.

“Yes?” She was still watching him.

“Please – do not disappear.” His words were soft, a plea, and he appeared to have no shame in begging her for this.

Again she judged him for a moment, then she inclined her head very slightly. “I have no strength to go anywhere.” Not acquiescence, perhaps, but a tacit treaty. For now.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki and Thor begin to get to the bottom of Loki's distress over recent events.

The days quickly fell into a routine. Loki was often lost in her own thoughts and Thor was hesitant to try to insert himself into them. He took the few opportunities when they came, speaking to her only when he had good reason to interrupt her silence. She was less short with him than on their first day on the mountain, but (if possible) even more distant.

The isolation quickly began to bore Thor. He was accustomed to the city, palace life, surrounded by servants and friends and hordes of people on the streets, his comrades in time of war. The peace of the mountain made him anxious, though he bore it patiently in hopes that it calmed Loki's pain. He spent a great deal of time hunting, but he hardly dared spend more time away from her than absolutely necessary. In spite of her improving health, she worried him deeply, and not just because of the health of the child within her.

It was the promise of the child that at last brought Thor an idea of something to pass the time with. It was evening on the fourth day, and Thor's luck had brought him enough meat to get by for a few days. He was trying not to pace, not wanting to disturb Loki with his unrest though he was unused to the small quarters and ached for activity. He fidgeted in his chair instead, fingers tapping on his knee as his eyes roved the room for some distraction. The fire was of little interest; it was as high as he dared make it, and even then likely still a shade warm for Loki while barely taking the biting edge from his own chill. His gaze moved on to the bed she slept in, made with the light spring coverings that were stored here in the cabin. His own nest lay on the floor on the other side of the room, a bundle of furs and blankets and anything he could find to keep warm enough to sleep. Past that was the low table where he'd moved it nearer Loki's window. She sat beside it, quietly looking at the book that Amma had slipped into Thor's pack for her. She appeared to be reading, as Amma had sworn she loved to do, but Thor was fairly certain that he had not heard her turn any pages.

Not wanting to unsettle her with his stare, he turned his eyes back to the fire and the mantle above it. The little wooden horse sat there, sparse decoration in the mostly blank space of the cabin. He rose abruptly and scooped it up, turning it in his hands and examining every minute and unskilled detail carved into it by his younger self. It took several moments for him to be aware of the weight of her gaze. He looked up to see her watching the little toy in his hands. He didn't press her, just watched her watching him until she finally spoke.

“I have wondered what a child's toy was doing up here on the mountain.” Her voice was as crisp and clear as the air outside, not hoarse with cold and disuse as his own had become. “Where did it come from?”

Thor turned it in his hands once more before he answered, holding the roughly hewn figure out so tat she could see the unsteady “TOR” inscribed on the base. “I used to join my mother on her herb gathering trips. She taught me to carve to occupy myself in the evenings.”

Loki leaned toward him over her book to eye the shaky letters critically. She looked faintly disapproving when she sat back. “Your mother gave a knife to a child who could not yet even spell his own name?”

That startled a laugh from Thor, though he cut it off quickly when he saw that the burst of noise made Loki flinch in surprise. “I could spell,” he assured her. “I just hadn't mastered the finer points of – well, points. Three letters seemed enough of an ordeal.”

His weak joke softened her face slightly, briefly. She nodded slightly, signaling an end to the conversation by returning her eyes to her book. Though he was used to her ending exchanges with such abruptness, this particular dismissal made Thor feel a little uneasy, and he toyed with the horse some more before hesitantly offering a few more words.

“I thought... that perhaps while we are here, I could create such a toy for the child.” His voice made it more of a question than anything, a cautious ring to it asking for approval, or even permission.

Loki was silent a moment, not looking up. Thor had almost given up on hoping for a reply when she murmured, “you would give our child splinters.”

The quiet words didn't seem to be an insult, in spite of the implication of carelessness. Thor reached up to set the horse back on the mantle, folding his hands. “I have the skill to smooth the edges now. … perhaps even to spell my full name.”

He could have sworn that the corner of her mouth twitched, but she still didn't raise her head. “What sort of sire busies himself making toys for a child he may never meet?”

Somewhere in the time it took to speak those words, the atmosphere in the cabin changed. Though she had not perceptibly moved, Thor felt a tension in her, a tight reign over emotions that had so recently been at ease. He had been treading cautiously for days, but now he steeled himself to be even more careful. This was important, he was certain.

“The kind who hopes to shower his child with the love they deserve before they even leave the womb,” he responded, his voice soft. “What kind of father would you have me be?”

“An absent one.” Her tone was only curt, but the snap of the book closing between her hands may as well have been a snap in her voice. Thor stiffened slightly, unsure what had caused this sudden change from the near intimacy of their conversation.

The silence between them became palpable, heavy and thick and almost hot. Loki was still as a statue, paler than Thor had become accustomed to seeing her in the cooler climate. He watched her, keeping his hands still in front of him, forcing his body to relax and warming his voice as much as the chafing cold would allow. He did his best to force his posture to broadcast calm, reassurance, knowing that his effort might have no calming affect on her at all.

“I can understand why you might prefer that.” Soft, he told himself, over and over. Gentle. Not threatening. Not in any way, real or implied. “But it would be another terrible act on my part for me to abandon my child, even if – you preferred that I abandon you.”

“It might not even live.” Her voice was flat, forbidding. “Even if it does, you will not want it.”

She was nearly vibrating with some contained storm of emotion, so distressed that Thor wished he could comfort her. He clenched his hands more tightly together, afraid to upset her further by reaching out and invading her space.

“Why do you fear that I will not want it?” He still spoke as gently as he could manage, trying to soften his intent gaze on her so that it did not become an uncomfortable stare. Her hands were clenched as well, he saw, balled into fists on top of her book. Under other circumstances, he might have been allowed to take them in his own, unclenching them and rubbing the tension from her slender fingers. Granted, under other circumstances, there might be joy between them, and no need at all for him to wish he could comfort her from her very hatred of him.

It was not the time to wish or wonder, though. Not with the – was it disgust? – tight expression on her face and the venom in her tone. “Have you not wondered what form your spawn with me might take?”

Thor wished he had any idea what she wanted him to say to that. He chose his words deliberately, offering as much truth as he had to give. “Of course I have imagined them. It matters not to me whether or children have the features of the Aesir or share your beauty --”

Loki interrupted him, slamming her hands flat on the table as she jerked to her feet. Thor half reached out, instinctively reaching to steady her in spite of his surprise. The look on her face made him still before he could rise.

“You will hate them.” She said it with bitter certainty, face hard with what could be anger. “You will hate them, and hurt us more than you have ever hurt me, and I shall never forgive you for it.”

Before Thor could piece together a response, she had turned on her heel and wrenched open the cabin door, storming out into the comfort of the snow.

___

 

Loki's mind was seething, aching. The brief exchange with Thor had brought up all the painful memories the Jotun had been struggling to keep at bay since they had come to the mountain. Loki hated his kindness almost as much as he had hated Thor's indifferent cruelty before. It lulled him, tempted him, and he could not allow himself to believe in it. He already knew what this Aesir man was capable of, and he knew with dreadful certainty that for all of Thor's well-meaning remorse, he would hate Loki more than ever after the birth of their child.

He didn't go far into the trees – just enough to be out of sight of the cabin, with the smoke of the fire still showing against the clear blue sky to help him follow his tracks when he returned. He settled at the base of a large tree, eyes turned toward the slope so that he could look upon the snowy alley spread out beneath him.

He should have known better. Known better than to hope, than to agree to any of this. True, his sire would likely have killed him for refusing Odin's offer for him, but had Loki truly had any right to believe that he could escape not only Jotunheim but the pain he had suffered there? He had brought this all on himself by believing that things could be better, that anything could be better for him. When all was said and done, this was his fault.

Loki sat for a long time, too miserable to even weep, just staring out over the valley and the trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long year since I started this, and taken a long time for me to be able to focus on updating. Part of that was being thrown out of the story by a particularly unkind and inconsiderate commenter, and it took me quite a while to get over it. I know how frustrating it is when a fic seems to go dead, and I have to apologize for being so slow to share some more. To anyone who's stuck around since then, thank you for hanging on! Never fear, I have two and a half more chapters ready to go, and a firm idea of where I'm heading. Things may slow down again around SDCC, but I'm feeling good about this story once again, and I am so unbelievably excited to have something to post!
> 
> Thanks again for hanging around, and for all the kind comments. I read and appreciate each and every one of them (except, of course, the ones from jerks being jerks). More comments are always welcome (I love encouragement!) and please do not hesitate to add suggestions for further tags. When I went back to reread them I found that they were painfully lacking in certain specific trigger warnings.
> 
> As ever, LadyGabe is responsible for this version of Loki, though this chapter bears no other direct input from her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the reasons behind Loki's suffering become painfully clear and Sif comes to call.

Thor waited until the beginnings of twilight to seek Loki out. He hated to let her out of his sight, weak as she still was, but he hated even more to refuse her what she was clearly asking for: privacy. He delayed a little, hovering around his pile of cut firewood to select a few choice blocks that would make appropriately sized toys for a young child. He set these in the snow to one side of the cabin door, carefully out of tripping distance, before he set out to follow Loki's snowy tracks.

They didn't go far. He was relieved to see the Jotun atop a small rise on the mountainside just past the cabin clearing. He stayed at a little distance away, waiting as the sun dipped past the horizon for Loki to acknowledge him. He was sure she saw him, but for whatever reason she chose not to notice him. Only when last light began to fade did he approach her from the front, making certain that he was in her line of sight and he would not startle her.

She didn't look toward him or move from where she huddled under the tree, her knees drawn up to her chest and her chin resting on her forearms. She just stared past him, then through him as he came even closer. Finally he gave up, unnerved by her silence, and spoke.

“If I said something to hurt or offend you, I am sorry --”

Her voice was as sharp as the sickle moon rising in the sky above them, cutting him off abruptly. “Stop pretending that you care for me. Pretense will only make things more difficult later.”

Again, Thor had no idea how to answer her. He bit down lightly on his lip, trying to find some way of reassuring her. “... I am not pretending. I know that I have done wrong, but I swear to you, you will never again have reason to fear me --”

This time when she overrode him, her voice was so soft he almost missed it. “A dog?” She said.

“--what?”

“A dog.” She repeated herself slowly, drawing the words out as though he didn't understand. “Or a serpent so venomous that a single bite could kill the strongest Jotun? What about Death herself? Could you care for these? Could you claim any of them to follow you as your heir?”

Thor's mind raced for explanation, for something he'd missed. How had the conversation turned to animals, to death--? He crouched down to buy a moment to think, settling carefully to one side of her so that she could keep staring down into the valley instead of at him.

“... I don't understand.” It was the only response he could manage.

Her laugh was bitter. It sounded almost painful. “My children,” she said. “Mine. Taken away for not being what was expected. For being different. For not being good enough.”

Her words were like daggers, though they appeared to be directed inward and not at Thor. He'd have preferred to suffer them all rather than see her face as they turned back on her.

“... are you trying to tell me – do you mean to say that you have had children?” Thor's voice was the quieter now, so quiet that she had to incline her head toward him to hear. “... that they were taken away from you?”

In answer, Loki bowed her head, hiding her face in her arms. Without thinking, Thor reached out to touch the back of her hand. She did not respond, but for once, she did not flinch away.

___

Sif brought more supplies, leading a sturdy horse up the winding trail the next morning. Thor went out to meet her, leaving Loki still firmly asleep. She had said no more the night before, in spite of his gentle attempts to glean from her more of what he sensed was seriously important. He had given up and tried to help her inside, eventually picking her up in his arms. She had let him, curling against his chest in a way that showed him clearly how little comfort she took from his embrace. Still, she did not tense at his touch, just lay limply against him until he could set her in her bed and draw the covers over her. She had turned away, toward the wall, but he could tell that it took her hours to fall asleep. She simply stared blankly at the logs, the green of her eyes catching the firelight when he looked toward her. The sun was threatening to rise when he noticed that she had fallen asleep and went to settle in his own bed.

He didn't sleep at all. When the rays of sun touched his face through the window a short time later he rose to sit silently by the fire, tracing the lines of the wooden horse with his hands. The sound of the real horse outside had alerted him to Sif's approach, and he took refuge in the dawn outside the cabin, waiting in the clearing for Sif to finish winding up the trail.

The look on Thor's face told Sif clearly that something was wrong, but he did not share his troubles with her, and she did not press him. Their conversation was limited to thanks for the supplies, and a brief update on Loki's condition. Sif was genuinely relieved to hear that her physical health was improving slowly, but concerned that Thor had nothing else to share with her. It did not sound as though there was any healing between them. While Sif had at first been just as dismissive of Loki as he had been, Thor's obvious distress on Loki's behalf was more important to her than her bias, and she had swung her opinions quietly around in support of him and his quest to appease Loki.

She had little information to share with him from the palace. His mother worried about the two of them, and sent her love and paper and ink for Thor to compose her a letter. Amma sent more spices, a simple necklace that Loki had frequently worn and seemed to prefer, and another book. She had brought soap, changes of clothes, things that had previously been overlooked in Thor's rushed trip up to the cabin. There were also plenty of fruits and vegetables from the warmer parts of Asgard, and two loaves of bread that had been fresh from the morning before, when Sif set out. She also told him that his friends, her fellow warriors, would be coming in turn up the mountain to bring him the supplies that he and Loki would need every week until she was well enough for them to return.

After that there was silence between them. The two rarely suffered any awkwardness, but Thor's struggle with his thoughts was clearly private, and Sif respected him too deeply to demand that he explain. After minutes of quietly staring down the mountain at his side, she took her leave of him, returning her own supplies for the night ahead to the horse's packs and beginning to lead it back down the trail.

He called her back before she reached the edge of the clearing, snow crunching under his boots as he hurried after her. She turned to look up at him, relieved to think that he might give her some idea of what concerned him so. “What is it?”

Thor struggled for words, conflict crossing visibly over his face. He was desperate to unburden himself to his most trusted friend, but loathe to reveal the one trust Loki had given him, a secret he suspected she held very dear. Finally he managed, “I need your help.”

Sif straightened slightly as though at attention, though she couldn't give him any more focus than she already was. “Anything,” she said simply.

He hesitated a moment longer. “I need you to visit the Jotun delegation. I need – you cannot ask, Sif. You cannot tell anyone of this. Get them all drunk if you have to. Just – find out what happened to Loki's children.”

Sif stared at him for a long moment, waiting for an explanation that didn't come. When she recovered herself, processing the information, she reached out to set a hand on his arm. “Consider it done,” she said, her voice low and serious. It was rare for Thor to look helpless, but he did now, and it troubled her. She let the horse's lead drop and reached up to embrace Thor, holding him tightly for a moment before she turned again to make her way down into the valley.

Thor stood a long time, setting the memory of the brief comfort of that embrace firmly into his mind for him to draw on in the future. Only when she disappeared completely into the snow and evergreens did he turn to go back into the cabin and check on his sleeping consort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has sent me such wonderful comments! It's a privilege to share with you all. I'm excited to post another chapter and your encouragement has kept me sprinting along with more chapters ready for beta.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki has a bath and some of the ice breaks.

The smell of his favorite spices sizzling over the fire at last woke Loki. The grumbling of his stomach made him sit guiltily up, reminded that he didn't have the right to neglect his body until the child was born. Monster or no, taken from him or no, he would do his best by it, and love it. Love meant nourishment, and he knew he needed some. Running out into the snow the night before had been foolish, too cold now that he had reached the right physical equilibrium, but he had needed the privacy and the stab of the chill to process his thoughts. He certainly hadn't meant to share so many of them with Thor.

Thor looked over at Loki when he sat up. He offered no smile, just serious regard. “I thought you might be hungry,” he said quietly. “You missed dinner, and Sif brought us fresh food. There is bread.”

The idea of bread made Loki's mouth water. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and wrapped a blanket over himself, going to his chair by the little table to scoop up a loaf and tear hungrily into it. A small bottle of oil accompanied it, but Loki ignored it, a small, considerate voice inside him pointing out that it would be very hard for Thor to clean oil from their plates with nothing but snow.

He could feel Thor watching him, but he was still too exhausted for the pressure of Thor's gaze to trouble him. He curled into his chair, knees to his chest, and worked his way steadily through the loaf, not looking at Thor in return but focusing only on the bread and the way it began to fill his empty belly. He was almost startled when Thor spoke again, though the big Aesir's tones were still couched in that disgustingly cautious gentleness.

“There are clothes, too. I thought you might like to change. The pack is by your bed.” Thor nodded to it. “Soap, so I can wash things.” Thor paused, clearly considering the massive size of the cauldron stored behind the cabin. Loki had seen it there, and wondered at it. “... I could melt snow and you could bathe, if you wished.”

A bath. It sounded heavenly to Loki, and was enough to bring his head up to look at Thor and inspire him to actual words. “-- yes. I want a bath.”

Thor nodded, returning his attention to the food as he scraped Loki's hearty portion onto a plate. “After breakfast I will bring the cauldron in and fill it, then.”

___

The cauldron was huge. Thor could not have bathed in it, but it would easily fit Loki's delicate frame. For some reason Thor could not name, he felt the need to fill the silences that he usually respected. Between trips to gather what had to be over a hundred bowls full of snow needed to fill the metal hulk of it, he told Loki how it came to be there. Apparently toting small bottles of tinctures and ointments and salves was easier than hauling entire bushels of herbs and flowers down the mountainside, so Frigga had had it brought to the cabin when Thor was only a babe. In his youth he had known enough of her craft to help her make them, but he admitted to remembering none of the necessary skills now, except the building of the fire to warm the water to approximately the right temperature. He would make sure it was cooler for Loki, of course, he said.

For some reason his chatter comforted Loki. He said nothing at all, but he gave Thor his attention to encourage his words, even going so far as to look up expectantly when the big man came in with the next load of ill-suited containers of snow. Thor patiently scraped them all out into the pot as he spoke, often pausing to finish a thought or anecdote before he disappeared outside again to begin gathering.

It took ages to fill the cauldron, and time again to warm it. When Loki tested it the first time he found it too warm, and Thor pulled it away from the fire. He made no sound as he did it, but Loki could see that the massive metal pot caused even Thor to strain when it was as filled with water as it was. Some tiny part of his heart began to thaw with the melted snow as he watched the Aesir labor without complaint to offer him this small comfort.

When the bath was at last ready, Thor rose from where he had sat to tend the fire and moved toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Loki hadn't even realized that he had spoken until the words were out and in the air between them, seeming to hover unnaturally. Thor was so surprised that he took a moment to turn and respond, his eyebrows going up.

“I assumed you would prefer your privacy.”

Thor was always so careful with his words now. Loki noticed it, when he had the energy to care. His choice of words was always so deliberate, and there was a tone in his voice that implied fault and apology any time Loki questioned him, and it made Loki – restless. Impatient. 

“Stay.” The order was curt. “Turn your back. Talk.”

Instead of chafing at the order, a tension that Loki hadn't noticed left Thor's shoulders. He obediently turned to go back to his chair, scooting it around so that his back faced the room. Loki waited for him to appear truly settled before he began to disrobe, setting his clothes in a neat pile on the floor next to the bed and dragging a blanket with him to the cauldron to act as a towel for when he had finished. He had expected to feel fear at being naked and in the same room with Thor again, but he found that he didn't. Thor made no movement at all, though Loki felt that he was listening. He didn't speak until Loki was settled in the warm water and had let out a soft and not quite voluntary sigh.

Loki didn't really listen to all that Thor said. It was nothing important, just cautious stories about his adventures at the cabin when he was a child. Still, the inane calmness let Loki relax, and allowed his thoughts to wander over less painful things than sitting in silence made him remember. He found himself thinking mostly of Thor, and of the way the Aesir had been acting since their retreat to the snow. Little things, really, tiny discomforts Thor suffered to care for him. The way he sat turned toward the fire now made Loki think that it must be so much warmer that way, with his face and hands turned toward the small blaze. He usually sat away from it, or half turned, able to keep a carefully uninvasive eye on Loki to anticipate his needs. Loki had seen him shiver many times when he sat like that, his attention to her more important to him than his need for warmth.

That was not the only concession he silently made, either. When they came up the mountain, he had given Loki all of the bread they had, though it would undoubtedly be a rare treat during their time here. In spite of his clear need for as many blankets as possible, he always asked at night if Loki needed some of his furs rather than the thin warm weather coverings that she slept under. He always fed Loki first, no matter how long he had spent out hunting for meat in the snow with no food. Here he had spent hours hauling snow in tiny vessels to fill the huge metal pot Loki bathed in now. He had been willing to leave the heat of the cabin to presumably sit outside in the chill and give Loki privacy for as long as he wanted it. He was careful even to not look at Loki for too long.

It was all astonishing, when he thought about it long enough. These were things that no Jotun would ever do for another, beloved or no. No, his careful attention to Loki was more like the attention a mother would give to an ailing child, heedless of her own health. Surely he couldn't have kept this up for so many days without coming to resent Loki if such kindness were not natural to him. Thor did not even seem disturbed when he ignored the small kindnesses or pretended not to hear his words. Perhaps this was adequate test for him after all; surely, if he could stand months of ignoring his own needs to care for Loki, if his kindness and attention never wavered... perhaps then Loki could trust him.

The memory of their conversation last night shattered his calm. Trust had been at the root of it, the reminder that even if Loki could trust Thor not to hurt him, he would never be able to trust him not to hate their odd children. He hadn't noticed that he had made a sound. It must have been unhappy, because Thor had stopped speaking and his previously relaxed posture had become upright and alert.

There was silence for a moment before Thor spoke. “Did I say something that upset you?”

No, no he had not. Loki had simply become so comfortable in his own thoughts that even the murmur of Thor's voice couldn't distract him from his carefully avoided distress. He didn't want to explain that to the Aesir, but at the same time he felt that Thor deserved some thanks for the efforts he was going to to care for Loki.

“No.” It was short, all he dared say without having to explain further. The denial did nothing to relax Thor, his attention still perked to pick up every hint of Loki's distress in spite of his turned back.

The silence grew heavier. Loki could tell that Thor was thinking hard, and he curled in on himself in the warm water, fearing that Thor would follow Loki's own line of thought back to the tension of the night before.

He was right. Thor turned his head slightly, not far enough to threaten Loki's privacy, but enough to offer him a sort of attention. Now that Loki was attuned to his care, he noticed it even through his quiet misery. His words brought Loki unfortunately right back to those unhappy thoughts.

“I will not allow any child to be taken from you.” He was quiet, almost heartbreakingly serious. “No matter what form our child takes, I have promised you that I will not be cruel to you again. I will not be cruel to our child, nor indifferent like I was before. Even if I do not know how to love them at first, if I cannot see past how different they are, I swear to you that I will show them the love that I should have offered to you until I learn how to love them for themselves.” He hesitated, then plowed on in fear that Loki would interrupt. “Asgard may not accept them at first, but – Asgard was prepared to accept a half-Jotun heir, so surely there is hope, and it will be many years yet before the question becomes serious. I am not perfect, Loki, I am – I am so very flawed, and I have let blind prejudice guide me wrongly, but I can work, and I will work as hard as I must to open my mind and – be certain our child will be loved and that you both will feel safe.”

The monologue left Loki speechless. He had not realized how far he had sunk down in the water under the weight of those words until he felt it lap at his chin. He felt crushed by Thor's speech, by the careful thoughtfulness and the naked honesty he offered. He admitted that he may not love their child at first, but he also admitted that if he did not, it was his flaw and not the child's – not Loki's – fault for not being what he expected.

Loki burst into tears.

___

His consort's reaction to Thor's desperate words left him dumbfounded and helpless. His hands gripped the arms of the chair as he prepared to rise, then stopped, confused and uncertain. What was he to do? Loki was hurting, he must go to her – but he must also not invade her privacy again, particularly in her nakedness. His mind spun desperately, begging for some easy solution, but none came. Finally he told himself fiercely that he had promised her no more indifference, and that sitting silently while she sobbed so heartbreakingly would break that promise.

He still wore the heavy furred coat the he had gone out to greet Sif in, as the cabin remained too cool for him even with the small comfort of the fire. He pulled the heavy hood over his head, as far down as it would go, and shut his eyes for good measure. Then, carefully, he rose from his chair and took cautious steps toward the cauldron, one hand out at about the right level to catch the metal lip of it when he got close.

The sound of Loki's tears changed not at all, in spite of his coming closer. He found the rough metal edge and followed it cautiously around, groping along it until he found her bare shoulder. That he touched with careful, questioning fingers.

Loki was still for a moment, her sobs softening briefly in surprise. Then he felt her move in a rush, and had almost had time to curse himself for doing wrong when he felt both her hands wrap around his and her forehead pressed to the back of his hand. She was letting him touch her – no, more than that – accepting comfort, downright clinging to his hand. He knelt down carefully, slowly so as not to jerk his hand from her grasp, and wrapped his free arm around her shaking shoulders, not caring if his warm furs were soaked from the bath. Only then did she let go of his hand and press into his embrace, hiding her face in his shoulder while she cried herself out.

He held her until she was silent, and the bathwater cooled. Finally he spoke her name, and was instantly sick with worry when she made no response. When he pulled cautiously back, peeking guiltily from under his hood, he realized that she had fallen asleep from the combined exhaustion of such strong emotions both now and the night before.

That left him in a bad position, indeed. If she was so worn out that she had fallen asleep in the cauldron, in his arms, in such an uncomfortable position, he was loathe to wake her. At the same time, was it his right to take her from the bath and do something so intimate as drying her off and putting her to bed?

After a moment of indecision, he settled on pulling her out of the bath. If that woke her, so be it. If it did not, she was in no shape to care for herself just now and his question was answered. Ever so gently he withdrew, cushioning her head on her arm at the lip of the cauldron. He shucked off his coat, heavier than ever with moisture, and draped it over the back of his chair by the fire to dry it. Then he stripped off the many layers of shirts he had bundled himself in almost a week before, in preparation for the freezing cold he would be living in, and returned to the side of the cauldron to lift her out.

It was hard to hold her up and dry her and manage not to let his hand slip anywhere that he felt was inappropriate while he handled her dead weight. He was shaking fiercely with cold by the time he managed it, and had had her tucked in bed. He was also very aware and slightly ashamed of the strong smell of unwashed Aesir warrior that permeated the cabin now that his protective layers had been removed.

Trembling with cold, and with a guilty glance at the sleeping Jotun woman, he stripped the remaining clothes off and, using one of his dirty shirts as a washcloth, stood naked by the cauldron and scrubbed himself as quickly as possible from head to toe, rinsing his hair last by sticking his whole head in the cauldron and scrubbing his hands through it to free it of soap. Then he dried off with the same damp blanket and all but threw himself into new clothes, crouching as close to the fire as possible to retrieve some warmth back into himself.

When he was finished, Loki had not stirred at all. He dragged the cauldron back outside, desperately grateful for the strain of it to warm his muscles, and began to build a fire around it. Within an hour, roaring flames had brought the cauldron to a boil and he could throw in their dirtied clothes, delighting in the exertion and hot water that brought him at last back to a bearable temperature, and glad that the ease of the labor left him time to his thoughts.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which gender comes into question and pretty much stays there.

When Loki woke again, late in the evening, it was to a room strung with complex spiderwebs of rope and gently steaming clothing. He was right on the edge of too hot, but too exhausted and sluggish for it to cause him any real distress. Thor, crouched by the fire and preparing another meal, was for once not shivering, and it caused Loki some small pleasure to see him seeming to be relatively comfortable. He sat up, remembering just in time that he was naked and drawing the blankets around him to cover his full breasts. He hadn't gotten out of the bath himself, he was sure, so Thor must have dried him and put him to bed, and perhaps not quite dared dress him.

Clearly, the Aesir had taken no liberties. Such quantities of drying laundry hung all over implied many hours of hard work, and surely had left no time to molest the sleeping Loki. It relieved him, though he had to note that he had not truly had any fear that Thor had touched him in any way he particularly objected to. It was interesting, too, that Thor had taken to housework after their exchange.

Those were not not the only things he had to take note of, either. Thor had comforted him that morning. No, those words were not sufficient. Thor had offered him comfort, and it had worked. Loki had not been certain, had even felt a little threatened when he had felt the first touch of Thor's hand, but when he had looked up through his tears to see Thor's hood pulled down over his face, his eyes shut beneath it, and even then still trying to turn his face away – Loki had felt safe. Thor's arms, his presence, even the relatively offensive unwashed smell of him had made Loki feel safe enough to cry himself out and into a sleep so deep that even Thor putting him to bed hadn't woken him. That was important for Loki to consider and understand, and he filed it away for serious future thought.

Right now it was more important to consider that he was starving. He hadn't gotten dinner the night before, nor breakfast, nor a midday meal, and he'd exhausted his body. This was exactly the sort of thing he had been planning to not do, for the child's sake if not his own. He shifted to the edge of the bed, keeping the blanket wrapped tight around him, and eyed the pack on the floor that Thor had said held his new clothes.

“I am going to get dressed,” he said, and stood up and dropped the blanket away from his feminine figure, reaching for the pack. Thor started to raise his head at Loki's words, then stopped and very clearly processed them before resolutely keeping his face turned away. Loki watched him with something like fascination, noting the care with which Thor did not look at him. It was amazing, he thought. After all that Thor had done, the restraint that he employed to protect Loki's privacy was so... unusual.

Still, Loki did not press the issue. He pulled the clothes from the pack and dressed himself, pleased by the loose and comfortable fit of the items Amma had sent, and even more pleased by the quilted gown that accompanied them. The garment was open in the front and could tie shut, which would give Loki room for his belly to grow during the months ahead. It was too warm in the cabin for him to slip it on just now, but he folded it and set it carefully beside his pillow before he padded across the room to look over Thor's shoulder.

Perhaps it was the weariness in him, perhaps the remembered comfort of Thor's embrace, but Loki felt a little reckless. Enough to rest both hands on Thor's shoulders and lean over him to examine what sizzled in the pan. It smelled amazing, but he was distracted from the food by the immediate stiffening of Thor's back and the short intake of breath. Loki went quite still, suddenly questioning himself. Would the Aesir take this an advance? Would he return to his brutish ways, here in this tiny cabin with nowhere for Loki to flee but into the snow?

 

What Thor did instead was perhaps even more appalling. He forced his shoulders to drop again in relaxation, and turned his head slightly to brush his lips lightly over Loki's knuckles, reminiscent of a greeting to a lady. Loki felt his cheeks burn with sudden heat, and he snatched his hands back as though Thor were the source of it.

“You took me out of the bath.” He sounded accusing, even to his own ears. It was all he could think to say, shocked as he was. He didn't notice his hands clasped in front of him, fingers rubbing over the skin where Thor's lips had touched him.

Thor didn't seem at all troubled. He looked up at Loki over his shoulder, face composed. “I was afraid you would slip down into the water, or wake too cold. You did not stir when I lifted you out, so I dried you off and put you to bed.” He paused, then decided to try for frankness. “Did I do wrong?”

Damn the man for his calm. Damn him for his good sense and reasonableness. Loki's cheeks were still flushed, his heartbeat still elevated from the tiny brush of a kiss. He shot back without thinking. “I would not know. Did you?” He realized that he was almost wringing his hands and folded them defensively across his chest as though protecting himself.

Thor considered the question for longer than Loki had expected him to, tipping the meat and vegetables onto a plate for him and offering it up for Loki to take. “... had you been awake, I do not think you would have found fault with my actions.” He had, after all, been so careful. So painfully respectful. He hoped it would be enough.

Though he was starving, Loki didn't reach for the plate in Thor's hands. He tucked his hands more firmly against his sides, not daring to touch Thor's warm skin again. “I have no choice but to believe you.”

After a pause, Thor set the plate down on the low table, pushing it toward Loki's side by the window. He followed it with a piece of fresh fruit and the remaining loaf of bread. He had touched none of the bread himself, Loki knew. He was making it a habit. He considered his answer again as he began to make his own meal, and Loki backed away to curl in his chair, drawing the plate of food toward himself with an eagerness he couldn't bring himself to display when the meal was in Thor's hands.

“... you do have a choice.” His back remained to Loki while he began to push food around in the pan. He added no spices for himself, Loki noted, choosing instead to manage only with what remained from cooking Loki's meal. “You could choose not to believe me, and to view me with mistrust.”

It was true. Loki began to eat as he thought about it, trying to focus on the food and not the place on his hand where he was sure he could still feel Thor's kiss. Thor had never kissed him, not even at the wedding ceremony that had bound them together. Such a kiss had been customary, but not required, and Loki hadn't known whether or not to expect it at the time. He had not been offended when Thor had not kissed him, but he had also been uncertain what it meant that he chose not to. Loki was even more uncertain now. Such a gesture was – almost affectionate. Thor had never shown him affection. He watched the Aesir's back suspiciously as he rubbed his fingers again over the back of his hand, trying to rub away the touch of his lips. Then he returned to his food to think.

___

Thor's words were serious, but he kept his tone light, only gently questioning. He had thought that Loki trusted him, at least for a moment. Loki had never touched him willingly before. Even while she sobbed in the bath, Thor had initiated that touch, and Loki had chosen to respond. That had been startling, a victory in a way, but this – had been heartening. The weight of Loki's hands resting so briefly on his shoulders had startled Thor, but with it had come a flood of relief. Surely it had meant something, and he had responded with a gesture of his own. Though she had jerked away, he was not even certain that it had upset her. Loki had seemed... what? More flustered than upset.

Perhaps he was wrong. He might be, after all. Perhaps he was wrong about her now, as he had been so terribly wrong at first. But if he was wrong, shouldn't he try that much harder to do right by her? How could he learn how, if she would not tell him? He poked the chunks of meet and sliced vegetables aimlessly around the pan, waiting for her to answer.

She ate before she responded. There was time for his meal to finish cooking and for him to turn toward the little table, full of apprehension. She had finished everything but the fruit and half the loaf by then, and was turning that in her hands. She didn't look up as he scooted his chair toward it, setting his plate down and beginning to eat though he had no appetite. Her words when she spoke were so soft that he almost didn't hear them, though when he realized she had spoken, he looked up.

“Thank you for taking care of me.” The fruit turned in her hands as though she were examining every inch for blemishes. Somehow, it didn't look as though she saw it at all.

Between the softness of her tone and the unlikeliness of her words, he wasn't sure that he'd heard her right. He didn't dare ask her to repeat it, instead settling for what seemed the safest answer. “Thank you for allowing me to.”

She set the fruit down. It was an apple, a Midgardian delicacy that he had once brought with him from his travels and persuaded those who kept the palace grounds to cultivate. He opened his mouth to tell her so, to entice her, and shut it again abruptly when she reached out and put the remaining half loaf of bread on his plate. Then she got up, taking her apple, and curled in bed around it.

Thor thought she slept for a while. He was not sure, but the evenness of her breathing as he finished his meal and savored the precious bread made him stay quiet as he slid outside to clean their dishes in the snow. He put them on their shelf as noiselessly as he could and went to settle in his chair by the fire. The little blocks of wood he had chosen the night before waited for him on the mantle, and he took each one down and examined it, weighing them and turning them in his hands before settling on one and taking up his smallest knife.

___

Some hours later Thor became aware that Loki was awake. He raised his head to look at her and found her turned toward him, the firelight catching her green eyes as she watched him. She didn't acknowledge him when he looked up, so he offered her a small smile of greeting. When it was not returned, he held her gaze for a moment longer, then returned to his work. The silence did not discomfit him as so many between them had, and he did not feel self-conscious, though he could not have put his finger on why. Though her silent regard did not distract him from his carving, it did pull his mind away to other things, things that he had let slip to the back of his mind. There was so much about her to wonder about, and he finally chose to get to the bottom of one that had been weighing on him.

He took his time considering his words before he spoke. There was no reason to hurry. The glint of her eyes told him that she was still alert whenever he glanced up, but her posture was relaxed, almost easy. He wondered briefly if this place was more home to her than her suite of rooms in the palace had been. Considering the circumstances, it was not unlikely. He had to admit to himself that this tiny, cold place was more comfortable to him than home had been since the night of their wedding. They had both been unhappy there, so distant from each other in most ways, so close in the wrong ones. He wondered if she felt the same, felt that the distance from that place and the wrongs done in it had offered them something almost like a fresh start. Likely not, if he thought about it seriously, but the musing offered him a flutter of hope nonetheless.

He didn't stop working when he finally decided what to say. He let the wood turn in his hands, whittling here and scoring there to distract them both and give them something to focus on. He was faintly nervous about speaking his mind, about asking her outright to share something intimate about herself, but if the time was not right now, he had to wonder when it ever would be. 

He was careful when he spoke, knowing that the quiet of the room could make his voice sound unnaturally loud and startle away their cautious rapport. He didn't phrase it as a question, as something that she would have to answer. He chose a statement instead, offering her his ignorance and interest in the hope that she would choose to teach him. “... I studied the Jotun when I learned that you were coming. Much of what I read did not reach my heart, but I remember some of it. I never quite understood the way your people see gender, and I am afraid – “ There he faltered, but only briefly. “-- that my misunderstanding may have in some way contributed to my poor treatment of you. I do not understand who you are, and how you see yourself. You came to me as a prince, and I... I did not know how to think of you outside of your physical form.”

The brief speech was thoroughly, flinchingly imperfect. The moment he finished it he was horribly afraid that everything about it, all of it, was all wrong. When she did not answer at once he became nervous, and lifted his eyes to meet hers, fearing to see what was in her face. To his surprise, there was still no tension in her. She appeared just as composed, considering his statement calmly. Her voice was just as calm when she answered him with absolutely no flicker of sarcasm or anger.

“... I am Loki.”

Thor set the wood down as he absorbed this, putting the knife beside it and then folding his hands before him. He tried hard to understand before he told her that he didn't, his tone apologetic and not a little shamed. “I think of you as my wife,” he added, anxiously cautious. “I know that I might be wrong to do so. I just – I do not know how to know that I am wrong.”

Slowly, she sat up in bed. She tucked the blankets around her, wrapping her arms around her knees and staring thoughtfully past him at the fire. “It is... not wrong, exactly. I came to you intending to be a wife.” It was true, but only because Loki had expected that the Aesir would not want him any other way. “... I do not like this body. It is not the form that I would choose to remain in.”

Yet she had, Thor knew. He remembered the way the handmaids had forgotten that she was the “Prince” Loki and begun to call her their princess. It had worked on him, too – and even his mother. “... why did you? What form is truly you?”

He could see from the brief tightening of her lips that at least one of those questions was difficult or displeasing. She didn't turn away, though, or grow impatient or defensive. She just picked absently at the covers as she sorted her words. It had been months since she had had to chafe at the limits of her Aesir vocabulary. Now it just didn't seem sufficient. “I had to provide an heir.” The simplest answer, if not the most complete. The second question was harder. There were barely words for it in Jotunheim, because they never needed any. Every being just was. This gender nonsense was far less complicated. Size had mattered far more, and she had always been relegated to something less because she was a runt. Her power and skills had not mattered. For a long time, gender had not mattered either. Not until she had become pregnant. “Every form is me. I cannot... be something that is not me at all. There was a time when none of my forms were less... comfortable than any other.”

It was no relief to Thor that that answer fell as short as he felt his initial, vague request had. It was clear that she was struggling to explain, though, and he could not help but appreciate the effort she was making to make him understand. “Is there a form that is most comfortable?”

There were too many possible answers to that, and so few were completely true. “The form that I took when I wed you,” she managed finally.

Thor could remember her – him – in it. Loki had appeared very thoroughly a prince, then, though a very slightly ambiguous one. Had Thor been pressed, he would have called him beautiful, though not handsome, and male. He still could not help wondering if that was strictly right. “Male, then?” he tried, fearing that the answer was too simple to be right.

Loki shook her head, hand tightening on the blanket draped over her. “No.” She said, very quiet. “Just Loki.” She was not looking at the fire anymore, but down at her lap. It was almost as though she were turning inward, shrinking in on herself.

Just Loki. Thor was not sure how he could hold her that way in his mind, but if it made Loki so unhappy to be thought of otherwise, he would try. “Just Loki,” he repeated, earnest. “I do not understand, but I will try to honor you by thinking of you that way. I will learn.”

She just shrugged after a moment, shaking her head again. “'She' will do,” Loki said quietly, and curled back around the apple, closing her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your wonderful comments!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki and Thor share feelings too long suppressed.

The tentative attempts to approach serious topics set a precedent. It was true that days passed with minimal exchanges between them, but if at night they both found themselves awake long past dark, they both felt safe enough speaking to each other. Thor talked most, as Loki's quiet attention invited his words more often than she contributed herself or asked questions. He did not ask her about her gender again, though he felt more guilty than ever about considering her as relatively female. It was a question that he resolved to bring up again, but not now. He had no way of knowing that his constant inner debate over the subject and the care in which he tried to consider her even in his own mind would have touched her. He also did not notice Loki's concession to him – that she began to sleep earlier in the evening, purposefully rousing in the middle of the night to cast her silent regard over him in invitation for him to speak to her.

Their conversations were not often serious. He spoke some of his youth, mostly of his explorations on Midgard. She was most likely to respond to these, sometimes sitting up to lean forward intently, other times asking questions to encourage him. He turned to the topic more often, guided by her interest and delighted by her curiosity.

Sometimes, if the hour grew very late and their conversation fell again to a comfortable silence, Loki would offer him a story from her own youth. These always troubled Thor, for he felt that no matter how carefully she chose her words (and she did, taking a long time to tell him even of simple memories), there was an undercurrent of... something. Pain, sometimes. Bitterness. Sometimes what he finally identified as the misery of her younger days was so subtle that she didn't think even to mask it from him. Cruel jokes played on her by others, the clever tricks she thought of to get them back... the stories that she was unselfconscious about were the worst, because what she didn't think of hiding from him was almost more awful for imagining how much worse the things she refused to tell him must be. From these small gleanings of information, he gathered that she had been considered not just small, as she was by Aesir standards, but as a runt, fit only for drowning. The way she avoided speaking of her sire made him wonder why she had survived at all, and also fiercely, selfishly glad of it. He wanted to tell her that he was proud of her strength and cunning, but afraid that she would not share anymore if she guessed what he knew.

When she had rewarded him three nights running with these little insights into herself, he began to consider what he might offer her in return. The mood between them was particularly pleasant that evening, as Fandral had brought their supplies, including one more set of clothes for them each and bread with cheese. Loki had fallen on the cheese with more interest than he'd ever seen her show in anything, and he had been so pleased he had laughed. The look she gave him in return had been almost amused, and she had purposefully saved the last slice of bread, spread it with the remaining cheese, and set it on his plate before she had gone to curl up in bed. He had treasured the gesture even more fiercely than he had the precious, rich taste of the cheese in his mouth.

His story when she woke after dark had made her smile. He had told her of a visit to a Midgardian place of drink and revelry, a “bar”, and how he had drunk seven men under the table without realizing that his own drinks contained any alcohol. He had been much more careful after that, particularly because the tiny barman had insisted that he pay the tab for all of them because he was the only one conscious. He had compared the fierce little man to a skurl, and then had to explain to her what a skurl (a tiny, buck-toothed scaly creature that liked to nest in grain) was. She almost laughed when he told her of the time one had bitten him, and he had had to carry it hanging from his finger all the way back to his mother to get it off. The exchange had left her with with a tiny upward curl at the corners of her mouth and her cheek resting comfortably on her knee where it was drawn to her chest.

When she spoke at last, it was to tell him of the time she had been cornered by a fierce beast from Jotunheim, a massive, wooly thing that was just intelligent enough for her to talk down. It was called a “yat,” and she had persuaded it that it would be an embarrassment to its herd if it brought back a kill so small and stringy as she would be. The yat had finally fled in dismay, and gone to hunt something more impressive – a massive Jotun that Loki had seriously disliked. It made him laugh, and he was rewarded again with her rare smile. “Those who knew me called me Loki Silvertongue,” she told him, and he assured her with real warmth in his voice that it was true.

They sat in silence for a time after that, Thor putting the finishing touches on his little wooden apple and both of them wearing small hints of smiles. He felt both safe and shy around her, just now. She was so clever, and clearly learned. She knew just the right way to gain a listener's interest, and how to modulate her tones to create anticipation or excitement or relief. If she forgot herself when she spoke, she would relax enough to make little gestures to help create the image of a scene in her listener's mind, and it all just delighted him. He was beginning to see that she would have made a good match for him, and perhaps, if they had been patient and gentle with each other, he would have made an equally good match for her.

The thought sobered him. He did not realize that the ease had left his face until he noticed that her own contentment had sharpened again to focus. She was watching him now, more intently than she did even when she waited for him to notice that she was awake. He ducked his head slightly, embarrassed. She was waiting for him to speak, to explain. He wanted to tell her, but he was afraid that she would not want to know. He could feel the silence between them beginning to grow heavy again, and he hated it. They had been almost companionable the last few days. He couldn't stand to lose it.

“I – have never had a lover.” The words fell from his lips without him willing it, and he looked up in time to see her face register shock before she gathered her expression to a blank and almost stony coolness. He rushed to explain, wishing that he had the silence back rather than this icy look. “It was – something that some of the Midgardians did. They did not share themselves intimately until they found the one with whom they would spend their life, and – I thought it – sweet.” He was sure that Loki didn't find it sweet at all. Her body had been relaxed before, but now her arms were locked tight around her knees, and her gaze was firmly turned to the bedclothes. “My friends laughed at me for it, but I thought – I never meant – I wanted to give all of myself, to hold nothing back, and – “ He faltered, looking down at the wood in his hands. “... I was grateful.” The words came out a whisper. “When you told me – I grieve for your pain, for the loss of your children, but I was glad that – you had had pleasure before I brought you pain.”

He felt empty when the words had finished spilling out of him. It was wrong for him to explain it, he was sure. He felt as though he was trying to excuse himself for what he had done to her, trying to express the frustration and resentment he had felt when he had saved himself for something he had thought would be special, but had turned out not to want at all. It was his fault, he knew now, for not seeing how special she was, how sweet their first night together could have been, intimate or not. It was wrong for him to unburden himself to her, of all people, when she already bore the burdens he'd forced on her. He was afraid to look at her again.

“They told me of you.” Her voice was very soft, almost too quiet for him to hear how it shook. “They told me how curious and kind and different you were. How you did not believe Asgard to be better than all other worlds, and how you respected the customs of people the others considered to be worth less for being different. I thought – you would be kind to me.”

Each word felt like a needle sinking slowly into his skin and lodging inside him to burn like acid. He had to set his knife down before he clenched his hand around it, and gripped the wooden apple too tightly instead. Tears pricked at his eyes, but he refused to cry in front of her. Not about this. Not when he had no right. It didn't matter, though – he couldn't hide the raggedness of his breathing when he spoke, the hoarseness of his voice. “... I knew, when – when you fought me off. I realized it when I took the time and -- remembered. I... should have been.”

He dared a peek at her, to see that she had buried her face in her knees. He thought she was crying, but he wasn't sure. “I wish I could – go back. If I had spent time with you, spoken with you – I can see now how much I would have admired you. You deserved all of my respect, and had I just given you a chance, I... I would have come to love you.” He said it helplessly, knowing that it was true. Tears tracked down his face now and he wiped them away with a fierce swipe of his sleeve, not wanting her to look up and see. “You were so alone, and I should have – been your comfort. Not the monster you feared. Loki, I --”

He cut himself off. Her shoulders were shaking, and it would do her no good now to know that he respected her deeply. That he felt like the worst kind of monster around her and that he was in awe of her poise and strength. It would only be cruel to tell her now that he was beginning to love her, because how could she begin to believe him?

“Do you want me to go?” He finished, dreading her answer. She didn't acknowledge him, and he swallowed hard, getting to his feet. “I am so sorry – I should not have said anything. I – know I can offer you no comfort now. I will – I will send for your servants as you asked. I will not trouble you any longer, I never should have – “

“I do not want anyone else to care for me.” Her voice was calmer than his, calmer than her posture suggested she was. Her words were muffled by her arms, but he heard them clearly enough, and surprise stopped him short. He stood where he was, hovering uncertainly and afraid to answer.

“I hated you.” Her steady voice continued, though it sounded a little thick. “When you came to me, I had tried so hard to learn your language. I was going to greet you in it, so that you would be surprised and pleased – “ She paused for a moment, a shudder going through her. “When I saw how little you cared, I hated you more than I have ever hated anyone.”

Thor shifted from foot to foot, hands clenching and unclenching. He wanted to touch her. To hold her, to comfort her, to beg for her forgiveness. He stayed where he was, listening. Maybe he could do that right, at least give her his attention. Maybe he could bear her burden somehow.

She continued, tone remaining even though her nails dug into her forearms in her effort to remain controlled. “I thought that I had escaped the indifference of the Jotun. I thought that – someone here would see me as good for something. I thought that you would. I was wrong. It was worse. All of it was worse, except the women who served me. I longed for your seed to take just so that it would end. I let myself forget that that was the worst thing that could happen, and when it did I hated myself for believing it could end well and I hated you even more for forcing me to it. I was afraid of what you would do when the child was born.”

It was like being in a dream. Thor couldn't make himself move, to reach out to her. Her tears had finally forced their way into her voice and the sound of her grief stabbed at him. “I will love your child.” It was all he could think to say, the only comfort he could think to offer. “I swear it to you, Loki, I do not care what form it takes. I will love your child and I will never put you through the grief of such a loss again. I admire you, Loki, I – “ I will love you, his brain insisted, but he clamped his mouth shut on the words. “I would do anything in my power to ease your pain. I wish I could comfort you.”

When she reached out, he reacted before he could think. He had crossed to the bed and sunk down beside her before he knew what he was doing. His arms slid around her and he brought her to his chest, almost into his lap, and she came into his embrace like a rag doll, turning her head into his shoulder and resting her weight against the sturdy heat of him as though she could no longer bear herself up. He pressed his face into her hair, unable to hold back his tears, and she did not object. Her own tears dampened his shirt and he began to rock her, at a loss for anything else to do. His mother had held him like this when he was small, and stroked his hair and rocked him before he had learned that the little pains like scrapes and scratches were within his power to ignore. He took everything he remembered from those comforting memories and offered it to Loki, his hand sliding over her sleep-mussed hair, kneading the taut muscles at the back of her neck. He was nearly blinded by his own tears, his breathing ragged and harsh, but his hands on her were gentle, his arms around her offering every comfort he could muster.

This time he did not move her when she fell asleep. He stayed where he was, holding his wounded bride as though he could protect her now from his past deeds. He couldn't sleep, not without disturbing her, so he did not try. He simply sat through the watches of the night, his back aching from the strain of sitting up and supporting her. He petted her to distract himself, and to soothe her even in her sleep, and he was rewarded with occasional sighs or tiny movements toward his touch. The little reactions hurt him as much as they touched him, and he had to stop often to wipe the tears from his face. In those long hours, in the silent darkness with Loki sleeping safe in his embrace, Thor would have given his own life for the chance to go back and offer her this comfort on their wedding night, when she had faced strangeness and change and a world full of strangers all alone, and had her last desperate hope for some sort of contentment torn from her in the bargain.


	10. Chapter 10

When Loki stirred and pulled away from him in the morning, it was with the languor of a sleepy cat and not with any sort of fear. She had clearly slept well and felt better, and seeing that was almost as much of a relief to Thor as was stretching his tortured muscles. He began to slowly uncurl himself as feeling returned to certain areas of his body, trying not to be terribly obvious about it while she was distracted by making little noises of contentment and arranging herself into a sitting position. Really, he would have found her rumpled and lazy demeanor quite sweet if not for his complaining back.

(Loki, in turn, felt far better. Their frankness of the night before had had affected him deeply. He felt not so much that a wound had begun to heal, becoming less painful, but that an emotional wound had stopped bleeding him dry. The tension and pain and fear that had colored his relationship with his new husband had eased, and no longer sapped him of emotional strength. Loki felt almost perky, and very resilient. After so long steeped in misery, it was a relief. He was happy to curl against his pillows and luxuriate in the lovely strangeness of not feeling awful. He was also happy to not consider that he could have lain in Thor's arms for hours more, and that the safe and prolonged contact between them contributed to his feeling of near contentment.)

Since Loki seemed to have no interest in addressing the fact that she had woken bundled against Thor, he chose not to press his luck. He rose stiffly from the bed and began to waddle toward his chair by the fireplace, intending to poke it back to life so that he could make breakfast. Almost at once, he felt the pinpoint weight of Loki's gaze on his back.

Clearly, he didn't respond to her attention as quickly as she would have liked. Her voice behind him was sharp. “What is the matter?”

If Thor had been a dog, he'd have hung his head and tucked his tail between his legs. As it was, hanging his head would have hurt and he had no tail to tuck. He sat down with a tiny noise of discomfort instead, hanging on to the arm of the chair for far longer than necessary in an effort to ground himself from the screaming of his body. “I am only a little sore,” he answered. Carefully.

He could almost hear Loki thinking. He hung on to the arm of the chair and leaned forward to encourage the fire back to some semblance of life and hoped that for once she would accept that and fall back into silence.

No chance of that. He heard her feet hit the floor of the cabin with a decisive thud. She was quick to come to him, and he was too sore to turn quickly, so he was far too late to deflect the deft stab of her fingers into the muscles of his lower back. The pain set him to gasping and he looked up indignantly in time to catch her narrowed eyes. Her expression made him shut his mouth with a snap.

“Get back in bed,” she ordered, and turned brusquely toward the door. Thor stared incredulously after after her as it slammed behind her, dumbstruck. Something told him that it would be wise to do what she said, and quickly, but it was far too difficult to move. It took him quite a while to obey her order and make it back to the bed, where he sat awkwardly on the edge. Then he just had to wait.

When Loki returned, her cheeks were flushed a warmer blue than they usually were, and she was holding an armful of reasonably sized rocks. Thor wasn't sure, but thought that she must have dug them all individually out of the snow. She dumped them all into his cooking pan (he could have sworn it hadn't been that clean before) and poured some of the melted snow that served as their drinking water over them before she set them over the fire. The fire, which he had awoken to a pathetic little flicker, blazed up eagerly to meet the pan in a way that was quite unnatural. She caught him staring when she turned around, and he shrank from her glare.

“Lie down.” She said it as though she had expected to find him that way and was dangerously disappointed that she hadn't. Thor did as she said, as quickly as his protesting body would allow. A glance at her stony expression made him roll over and lie face down, where he waited. ...awkwardly. He had no idea what she meant by this.

In spite of the noises of her moving around and the clacking of the rocks, lack of sleep from sitting up and holding her had almost caught up with him by the time he felt her weight on the bed beside him. He started to shift to look at her, but a firm hand in the center of his back made him stay. He lay there uncertainly, quite still and feeling a little apprehensive. He could hear her rustling fabric, and then all became clear as a small, hot weight came to rest directly atop the stabbing pain beneath one of his shoulder blades.

Thor let out a sigh as more rag-wrapped rocks came to rest on his back. The ones on his shoulders and middle back she put over his shirt, but as she moved lower down she slid her cool hands underneath the fabric to press the bundles against his skin. Then she started back at the top, leaning gently on the warmed stones and using them to work out the knots in his back.

It was the first time Thor had felt truly warm in weeks. Even when he had dried the laundry and been able to strip down to a bare three layers, he hadn't been wholly comfortable. With the warmth from the stones soaking blissfully into his skin and the friction of her touch spreading it across his back, he began slowly to relax from the constant tension of being too cold, and from the strain of sitting uncomfortably for so many hours. The gentle attention also began to distract him from his constantly guilty thoughts, letting his mind sink into a place without concerns, where he could simply soak up the comfort of her hands.

He didn't realize that he'd fallen asleep until he awoke. Sometime during his nap all of the rocks had made their way under his shirt, with no fabric wrapped around them, and they were now slightly cool weights on his back. He was piled with – well, everything, really. The clean laundry, what parts of the blankets he wasn't lying on, his fur-lined coat. He was still warm, and he felt quite unwilling to move. He smelled food, though, and his stomach complained at him fiercely enough that he began to extricate himself from the blankets. The rocks slid down his back as he sat up and he had to scoop them out of the back of his shirt while he looked around the small room.

Loki was settled in her chair by the window, a plate in front of her and an open book just past it. She was nearly finished eating, but she had paused to watch him sit up. He offered her a smile, feeling as comfortable with her just now as he usually did when she woke in the night, even though the only slightly warm light of afternoon was spilling through the window.

She didn't smile back at him, but her voice was soft enough, almost enough to be called warm. “You can be very stupid, you know.”

“-- can I?” It was obviously true, but it was still a surprise to be told first thing upon waking. He carefully sat himself up at the edge of the bed, still stiff but far less sore. A last rock slid from up by his shoulder to travel down his shirt, and he extricated it from its landing spot in the back of his pants and set it aside.

Loki took another bite of her food and ate it thoughtfully before answering. “You sat up all night. You should have slept.”

Getting up was easier, now. Thor managed it by steadying himself on the edge of the table and took an experimental step. Much, much better. He worked his way patiently toward his chair, and the promising sight of a plate of food resting near the fire to keep warm. She had cooked for him, too. “I did not wish to wake you.”

True, but it was more than that. He also had not wanted to let her go. He longed to comfort her, to feel like he was doing something right and good for her, even though he was painfully certain that he had no right at all. It had felt so good to hold his wife in his arms and know that when he did it he was giving her comfort, something that she had wanted and reached out to him for. He had stayed where he was mostly out of selfishness.

Loki's eyes narrowed in thought, but she seemed to accept the answer, because she didn't press further. She didn't plan on letting him have the final word, though. “Do not hurt yourself like that again.” She paused, poking at a chunk of meat on her plate. “And you must not let yourself get so cold. It is not good for you.”

Thor wasn't sure quite how the tables had turned and made her into the one taking care of him, but he couldn't really argue that she was wrong. He hadn't noticed how much the cold had really bothered him until he'd been warm again. Still, her health was more important, particularly now. How could he keep her cool enough, yet not freeze himself? Adding many more layers would simply mean he wouldn't be able to move.

“I do not want you to become ill again. I can manage for as long as is necessary.” He scooped his plate up against his chest like a precious thing. It smelled delicious, and his mouth watered. She'd put some of the carefully hoarded spices in it, he could tell. He hadn't had a meal that wasn't bland since they had left home, and he closed his eyes to appreciate the first bite he put in his mouth. It was wonderful.

Loki took a moment to appreciate his enjoyment of her cooking before she answered him. “I could keep you warm.”

The bite Thor had just taken was ruined by his choking on it. He groped frantically for the water as he coughed up a chunk of some root vegetable that stored well in the cold temperatures. Loki watched him suck down nearly half of their remaining water, her calm expression hiding her amusement at having startled him. Even more entertaining, the first words he managed to gasp out afterward were an apology. “I am sorry – I did not mean – “ As though he had said something offensive. Loki almost felt bad.

She took pity on him when he'd gotten through the rest of the water, and rose to pull the jug from his hand. “With magic, of course.”

She let him digest it while she took the jug outside to fill it with more snow, and brought it back in to set by the fire to melt. The brief break let him get his breath back, and his composure with it. She sat down again and looked at him invitingly over her plate.

Thor poked at his food again, though he was too cautious to risk another bite just yet. “... I did not know you had skill with magic.” Indeed, no one had warned him, and nothing in her actions or demeanor had given him such a hint until this morning. He was uncertain how he felt about knowing that. It did not bother him, exactly, but the fact that she had never used it to protect herself from him when she had felt threatened troubled him rather a lot. He wanted to ask why she had never told him, but he was afraid that the answer was too painfully obvious.

“Now you do,” Loki told him, and began to eat again. Though there was no outward indication that she was working magic, Thor began to feel as though warm air were gathering around him. When he opened his mouth to object, to tell her that she should save her strength instead of wasting it on him, he was met with such a firm glare that he meekly shut it again, and allowed himself to simply enjoy the feeling.

**Author's Note:**

> Ownership of this particular Loki belongs to LadyGabe (please check out her excellent Legend of Zelda fanfic, as well as the rest of her library) and her input and ideamongering have helped me creep onward to chapter two.


End file.
